Washington:
Top NASA scientists have saidthere was no scientific evidence to support a colleague'sclaim that fossils of alien microbes born in outer space hadbeen found in meteorites on Earth.
The US space agency formally distanced itself from thepaper by NASA scientist Richard Hoover, whose findings werepublished on Friday in the peer-reviewed Journal of Cosmology,which is available free online.
In response, the journal's managing editor Lana Taolashed out at 'truly unprofessional and frankly dishonestconduct of various individual(s) at NASA who have resorted tolies, slander, defamation and ad hominem attacks'."Hysteria and lies do not constitute scientific doubt.They are calls for medication," she said in an email.
According to the study, Hoover sliced open fragmentsof several types of carbonaceous chondrite meteorites, whichcan contain relatively high levels of water and organicmaterials, and looked inside with a powerful microscope, FieldEmission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM).He found bacteria-like creatures, calling them"indigenous fossils" that originated beyond Earth and were notintroduced here after the meteorites landed."The implications are that life is everywhere, andthat life on Earth may have come from other planets," thestudy claimed.
Carl Pilcher, director of NASA's AstrobiologyInstitute, described Hoover as a "NASA employee" who works ina solar physics branch of a lab in the southeastern state ofAlabama.
The US space agency formally distanced itself from thepaper by NASA scientist Richard Hoover, whose findings werepublished on Friday in the peer-reviewed Journal of Cosmology,which is available free online.
In response, the journal's managing editor Lana Taolashed out at 'truly unprofessional and frankly dishonestconduct of various individual(s) at NASA who have resorted tolies, slander, defamation and ad hominem attacks'."Hysteria and lies do not constitute scientific doubt.They are calls for medication," she said in an email.
According to the study, Hoover sliced open fragmentsof several types of carbonaceous chondrite meteorites, whichcan contain relatively high levels of water and organicmaterials, and looked inside with a powerful microscope, FieldEmission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM).He found bacteria-like creatures, calling them"indigenous fossils" that originated beyond Earth and were notintroduced here after the meteorites landed."The implications are that life is everywhere, andthat life on Earth may have come from other planets," thestudy claimed.
Carl Pilcher, director of NASA's AstrobiologyInstitute, described Hoover as a "NASA employee" who works ina solar physics branch of a lab in the southeastern state ofAlabama.
