What can the study of Astrobiology accomplish?
The transfer of microbial life between objects within the solar system is nowadays taken for granted. Projects to search for life on planets and comets are under way. An Astrobiology Institute under the auspices of NASA was set up a few years back and other countries are following suit. Recently the first Centre for Astrobiology in the UK was started at Cardiff University in Wales. Astrobiology has moved into the realm of conventional science. A decisive experiment to show that microbial life is still arriving to Earth via comets is being planned by ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation) in collaboration with the Cardiff group. The aim is to collect large quantities of stratospheric air using sterile equipment (cryopumps) carried aboard balloons, and to search these samples for hints of alien microbial life. If we accept the author’s idea, some of our views of evolution will change. The first unequivocal detection of such alien life would undoubtedly mark the most important turning
