A rock from Orkney that was launched into space could help establish if life exists on other planets, Aberdeen University scientists believe. The rock was attached to a Russian spacecraft last year to test the theory that meteorites can carry primitive life forms from one planet to another. The rock, which spent 12 days in space as part of a series of experiments by the European Space Agency, was chosen as it contains the remains of primitive algae that lived in the Orkney region almost 400million years ago.
STONE-6 artificial meteorite shows Martian impactors could carry traces of life An artificial meteorite designed by the European Space Agency has shown that traces of life in a martian meteorite could survive the violent heat and shock of entry into the Earths atmosphere. The experiments results also suggest that meteorite hunters should widen their search to include white rocks if we are to find traces of life in martian meteorites. The STONE-6 experiment tested whether sedimentary rock samples could withstand the extreme conditions during a descent though the Earths atmosphere where temperatures reached at least 1700 degrees Celsius. After landing, the samples were transported in protective holders to a laboratory clean-room at ESTEC and examined to see if any traces of life remained. The results will be presented by Dr Frances Westall at the European Planetary Science Congress on Thursday 25th September.
Having smashed the world record for the longest human-made object flown in space, the YES2 team turned its attention to what happened with the Fotino capsule. The onboard beacon had failed to activate and signal the capsule's final location.
"We have some confidence that the capsule actually came down" - Marco Stelzer, a mission analyst and ground support engineer with the European Space Agency.
A full-length tether deployment would have released the capsule back into Earth's atmosphere. A U.S. ground station in Alaska did not detect Fotino flying overhead after the tether release, also suggesting the capsule re-entered instead of continuing in a low-Earth-orbit with the Foton spacecraft.
Alien Life Can Survive Trip to Earth We could have alien origins, say scientists who sent fossilized microscopic life-forms into space and back inside an artificial meteorite. The researchers attached the baseball-size rock to the outside of the European Space Agency's Foton M3 spacecraft to test whether biological material could survive the round-trip journey.
The European Space Agency's spherical Foton M3 capsule landed in the Kazakh desert on September 26 with an artificial meteorite attached to its exterior. Credit Paula Lindgren, University of Aberdeen.
A rock quarried on Orkney was blasted into space to find out if meteorites could carry primitive life from one planet to another. One theory being tested is whether life could have arrived on Earth from Mars. University of Aberdeen experts had the rock attached to an unmanned Russian craft and found life would probably only survive in a large meteorite. Further details about the experiment will be revealed at the Highland Science Festival on 3 November.
A Soyuz-U Rocket Body that was launched on the 14 September, 2007, from the Baikonour Cosmodrome, for the Foton M3 mission is to re-enter the Earths atmosphere on the 14th October 2007 @ 16:09 GMT ± 96 hours.
The reentry capsule for the Foton-M3 spacecraft, which has been in low-Earth orbit for the last 12 days, successfully landed this morning in an uninhabited area 150 km south of the town of Kustanay in Kazakhstan, close to the Russian border, at 09:58 CEST, 13:58 local time.