A Sense of Doubt blog post #3937 - SoD Reprint from Nov. 28 2017 - Space Dust Carries LIFE

A Sense of Doubt blog post #3937 - SoD Reprint from Nov. 28 2017 - Space Dust Carries LIFE

I fell behind on the blog, so I am entering reprint mode.

Often when I go into reprint mode, I find some new content to share.

Such is the case with this post.

Also, I chose to go back to 2017 and these same days -- today and tomorrow -- from my first year in the PACNW, two years and some months after my Mom died.

Thanks for tuning in.

LINK TO ORIGINAL POST I AM REPRINTING BELOW

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #875 - Space dust may transport life between worlds

Imagine what this amazingly resilient microscopic (0.2 to 0.7 millimeter) milnesium tardigradum animal could evolve into on another planet. (credit: Wikipedia)

Hey, Mom! Talking to My Mother #875 - Space dust may transport life between worlds


Hi MOM, 

Just a re-post today in order to make work of catching up. Another in the "isn't this interesting?" department.

We're all just riders on some space dust...

http://www.kurzweilai.net/space-dust-may-transport-life-between-worlds

Space dust may transport life between worlds

A hypervelocity bioparticle from Earth could have reached identified potential habitable planets

November 26, 2017

Life on our planet might have originated from biological particles brought to Earth in streams of space dust, according to a study published in the journal Astrobiology.

A huge amount of space dust (~10,000 kilograms — about the weight of two elephants) enters our atmosphere every day — possibly delivering organisms from far-off worlds, according to Professor Arjun Berera from the University of Edinburgh School of Physics and Astronomy, who led the study.

The dust streams could also collide with bacteria and other biological particles at 150 km or higher above Earth’s surface with enough energy to knock them into space, carrying Earth-based organisms to other planets and perhaps beyond.

The finding suggests that large asteroid impacts may not be the sole mechanism by which life could transfer between planets, as previously thought.

“The streaming of fast space dust is found throughout planetary systems and could be a common factor in proliferating life,” said Berera. Some bacteria, plants, and even microscopic animals called tardigrades* are known to be able to survive in space, so it is possible that such organisms — if present in Earth’s upper atmosphere — might collide with fast-moving space dust and withstand a journey to another planet.**

The study was partly funded by the U.K. Science and Technology Facilities Council.

* “Some tardigrades can withstand extremely cold temperatures down to 1 K (−458 °F; −272 °C) (close to absolute zero), while others can withstand extremely hot temperatures up to 420 K (300 °F; 150 °C)^[12] for several minutes, pressures about six times greater than those found in the deepest ocean trenches, ionizing radiation at doses hundreds of times higher than the lethal dose for a human, and the vacuum of outer space. They can go without food or water for more than 30 years, drying out to the point where they are 3% or less water, only to rehydrate, forage, and reproduce.” — Wikipedia

** “Over the lifespan of the Earth of four billion years, particles emerging from Earth by this manner in principle could have traveled out as far as tens of kiloparsecs [one kiloparsec = 3,260 light years; our galaxy is about 100,000 light-years across]. This material horizon, as could be called the maximum distance on pure kinematic grounds that a material particle from Earth could travel outward based on natural processes, would cover most of our Galactic disk [the "Milky Way"], and interestingly would be far enough out to reach the Earth-like or potentially habitable planets that have been identified.” — Arjun Berera/Astrobiology

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Abstract of Space Dust Collisions as a Planetary Escape Mechanism

It is observed that hypervelocity space dust, which is continuously bombarding Earth, creates immense momentum flows in the atmosphere. Some of this fast space dust inevitably will interact with the atmospheric system, transferring energy and moving particles around, with various possible consequences. This paper examines, with supporting estimates, the possibility that by way of collisions the Earth-grazing component of space dust can facilitate planetary escape of atmospheric particles, whether they are atoms and molecules that form the atmosphere or larger-sized particles. An interesting outcome of this collision scenario is that a variety of particles that contain telltale signs of Earth’s organic story, including microbial life and life-essential molecules, may be “afloat” in Earth’s atmosphere. The present study assesses the capability of this space dust collision mechanism to propel some of these biological constituents into space. Key Words: Hypervelocity space dust—Collision—Planetary escape—Atmospheric constituents—Microbial life. Astrobiology 17, xxx–xxx.

references:

• Arjun Berera. Space Dust Collisions as a Planetary Escape Mechanism. Astrobiology, 2017; DOI: 10.1089/ast.2017.1662
• Arjun Berera. Space Dust Collisions as a Planetary Escape Mechanism. arXiv:1711.01895. Nov. 6, 2017 (open access)

Topics: Biotech | Physics/Cosmology | Space

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Reflect and connect.
Have someone give you a kiss, and tell you that I love you, Mom.
I miss you so very much, Mom.
Talk to you tomorrow, Mom.
- Days ago = 877 days ago
- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 1711.28 - 10:10
NEW (written 1708.27) NOTE on time: I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of your death, Mom, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of your death, Mom. I know this only matters to me, and to you, Mom.

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NEW CONTENT

https://www.livescience.com/space-dust-falls-to-earth.html

5,200 tons of extraterrestrial dust fall on Earth each year

By Stephanie Pappas published April 12, 2021

Tiny dust particles far outweigh larger, flashier meteorites that hit the planet.

Every year, 5,200 tons of extraterrestrial dust fall to Earth. 

This gentle rain of bits of comets and asteroids far outweighs larger meteorites that hit the planet, according to research to be published April 15 in the journal Earth & Planetary Science Letters. Only about 10 tons (9 metric tons) of larger space rocks land on Earth annually. 

Despite the large quantities, it's hard to detect space dust or track its annual accumulation in most places due to precipitation that washes dust away. And in most places, dust originating on Earth swamps dust from space. 

But in Adélie Land, Antarctica, near the French-Italian Concordia research station, snowfall is very predictable and there is very little terrestrial dust. Over 20 years, French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) physicist Jean Duprat and his colleagues have made six expeditions to the area to collect particles. The layers of space dust are well enough preserved in the region for researchers to estimate how much fell year after year.

Researchers dug out large trenches of snow and carried the snow layers in 44-pound (20 kilograms) barrels back to the laboratory at the research station, where they carefully melted the snow and collected the dust particles left behind. They then sorted the particles, removing contaminants like fibers from the researchers' snow gloves. 

Extrapolating from the findings in central Antarctica, the researchers found that approximately 5,200 tons (4,700 metric tons) of these tiny particles, measuring between 30 and 200 micrometers in diameter, drop onto Earth each year. (For reference, a human hair averages about 70 micrometer in diameter.) That makes tiny particles the most abundant source of extraterrestrial material on Earth.

Because much of the space rock that crashes through Earth's atmosphere burns up, the researchers estimated the volume of dust in space that would result in that flux on the planet's surface. They gauged that about 15,000 tons (13,600 metric tons) of space dust initially enter the atmosphere each year, meaning only about a third reaches the ground. About 80% of the dust probably comes from comets known as Jupiter-period comets, the researchers wrote. These are comets with short orbits controlled by the influence of Jupiter's gravity. The other 20% of dust likely comes from asteroids.

Understanding the flux of extraterrestrial material to Earth is important for many fields of astrophysics and geophysics, the researchers wrote, because these space rocks may have brought many elements to the planet. Some theories hold that elements and molecules originating from space rocks may have been crucial to the early development of life on Earth.

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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2511.28 - 10:10

- Days ago: MOM = 3801 days ago & DAD = 456 days ago

- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I post Hey Mom blog entries on special occasions. I post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day, and now I have a second count for Days since my Dad died on August 28, 2024. I am now in the same time zone as Google! So, when I post at 10:10 a.m. PDT to coincide with the time of Mom's death, I am now actually posting late, so it's really 1:10 p.m. EDT. But I will continue to use the time stamp of 10:10 a.m. to remember the time of her death and sometimes 13:40 EDT for the time of Dad's death. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.