This PDF file contains the front matter associated with SPIE Proceedings Volume 9606, including the Title Page, Copyright information, Table of Contents, and Conference Committee listing.

The emerging consensus that comets carry the biochemical seeds of life coincides with the first step that was reached as early as 1977 in the historical development of the Hoyle-Wickramasinghe theory of cosmic life. To mark the centenary of the birth of Sir Fred Hoyle on 24 June 2015 this brief article retraces early developments that essentially heralded the new science of astrobiology.

The big question of the origin of life is examined. The paradox created by Pasteur’s resounding edict: Life only comes from life, pitted against the need for spontaneous generation is explored. This seemingly dead-end conundrum contrasts sharply with the great progress we have made in understanding the evolution of the species since Darwin’s revolutionary insight. The conditions and sources of energy that might have promoted non-living molecules and compounds to cross the sharp line from inert to living are contemplated. Abiotic synthesis might help explain the origin, but still fails to explain the moment of vitalization. A different approach to discovering when the inert becomes alive is proposed. The need for, and a way to bring forth, a “Bio-Einstein” to solve this penultimate question of life’s origin are presented.

Although Oparin’s coacervate model for the origin of life by chemical evolution is almost 100 years old, it is still valid. However, the structure of his originally proposed coacervate is not considered prebiotic, based on some recent developments in prebiotic chemistry. We have remedied this deficiency of the Oparin’s model, by substituting his coacervate with a prebiotically feasible one. Oparin’s coacervates are aqueous structures, but have a boundary with the rest of the aqueous medium. They exhibit properties of self-replication, and provide a path to a primitive metabolism, via chemical competition and thus a primitive selection. Thus, coacervates are good models for proto-cells. We review here some salient points of Oparin’s model and address also some philosophical views on the beginning of natural selection in primitive chemical systems.

We present some recent developments in philosophy of astrobiology which illustrate usefulness of philosophy to astrobiology. We cover applications of Aristotelian views to definition of life, of Priest’s dialetheism to the question if viruses are alive, and various thought experiments in regard to these and other astrobiology issues. Thought experiments about the survival of life in the Solar system and about the role of viruses at the beginning and towards the end of life are also described.

The weblike structure of the cosmic microwave background CMB temperature fluctuations are interpreted as fossils of the first turbulent combustion that drives the big bang^1,2,3. Modern turbulence theory³ requires that inertial vortex forces cause turbulence to always cascade from small scales to large, contrary to the standard turbulence model where the cascade is reversed. Assuming that the universe begins at Planck length 10^-35 m and temperature 10³² K, the mechanism of the big bang is a powerful turbulent combustion instability, where turbulence forms at the Kolmogorov scale and mass-energy is extracted by < -10¹¹³ Pa negative stresses from big bang turbulence working against gravity. Prograde accretion of a Planck antiparticle on a spinning particle-antiparticle pair releases 42% of a particle rest mass from the Kerr metric, producing a spinning gas of turbulent Planck particles that cascades to larger scales at smaller temperatures (10^-27 m, 10²⁷ K) retaining the Planck density 1097 kg m^-3, where quarks form and gluon viscosity fossilizes the turbulence. Viscous stress powers inflation to ~ 10 m and ~ 10¹⁰⁰ kg. The CMB shows signatures of both plasma and big bang turbulence. Direct numerical simulations support the new turbulence theory⁶.

The idea that credible searches for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (ETI) could be carried out were laid out in detail in a classic paper by Morrison and Cocconi (1959).1 They suggested using the radio band for these searches. Since then radio searches have been carried out by over sixty different groups. No signals from ETIs have been identified. In this paper I will discuss the argument for the existence of extra-terrestrial intelligence. I will provide a method to estimate the number of extragalactic civilizations that are capable of signaling us and consider the uncertainties inherent in this estimate. I will provide the rationale for searching for these signals in the radio band. Finally I will discuss the future prospects for this endeavor.

Since it’s public release in 1999, the capabilities of SETI@home have grown rapidly. The continuation of Moore's law has led to personal computers one thousand times faster than those available in 1999, with graphics processing units that can provide processing speeds only seen on supercomputers in the last century. The capabilities of the SETI@home software have increased to better utilize the available processing power. Increases in radio astronomy instrumentation technologies have also led to improvements in the potential data sources for SETI@home. I will describe the evolution of SETI@home, and how it will change in the future to better match the available technologies, in the data sources, the data processing techniques, and the candidate identification process.

Classical prebiotic chemistry, which has for the last half century explored the reactivity of small organic molecules in glassware environments under the control of chemists, has left unanswered multiple paradoxes with respect to the origins of life. Many of these can be approached, and possibly solved, by placing organic molecular reactivity within the context of the rocks, minerals, hydrosphere, and atmosphere of a prebiotic earth. This new direction in prebiotic chemistry is discussed here, with special emphasis on the role of minerals in constraining the inherent propensity of carbohydrates to devolve to form unproductively complex mixtures of materials. We focus in particular on minerals containing the elements boron and molybdenum, which is produced in discontinuous synthesis model for the emergence of RNA as the first Darwinian molecule. Further, the role of desert environments to manage the “water paradox” is discussed in the context of many classes of processes that have been proposed to deliver RNA under prebiotic conditions. If current models are correct to suggest that early Earth may have been largely flooded at the time when life originated, Then those desert environments may not have been available. However, the inventory of water on Mars has always been less than on Earth and, as Kirschvink has pointed out, intercourse between the two planets was frequent during the time when life is emerging on either planets. This suggests that desert like environments may have been present on early Mars, if they were not present on early Earth.

Various organic reactions have been studied under simulated hydrothermal conditions, but the prebiotic potential of this medium has not been systematically explored. In this paper we show that organic reactions in water under high pressure and temperature are not only possible, but offer clear prebiotic advantages. This is true especially for supercritical water. We present examples of organic reactions in superheated water which have prebiotic significance.

All metallo-proteins need post-translation metal incorporation. In fact, the isotope ratio of Fe, Cu, and Zn in physiology and oncology have emerged as an important tool. The nickel containing F430 is the prosthetic group of the enzyme methyl coenzyme M reductase which catalyzes the release of methane in the final step of methano-genesis, a prime energy metabolism candidate for life exploration space mission in the solar system. The 3.5 Gyr early life sulfite reductase as a life switch energy metabolism had Fe-Mo clusters. The nitrogenase for nitrogen fixation 3 billion years ago had Mo. The early life arsenite oxidase needed for anoxygenic photosynthesis energy metabolism 2.8 billion years ago had Mo and Fe. The selection pressure in metal incorporation inside a protein would be quantifiable in terms of the related nucleotide sequence complexity with fractal dimension and entropy values. Simulation model showed that the studied metal-required energy metabolism sequences had at least ten times more selection pressure relatively in comparison to the horizontal transferred sequences in Mealybug, guided by the outcome histogram of the correlation R-sq values. The metal energy metabolism sequence group was compared to the circadian clock KaiC sequence group using magnesium atomic level bond shifting mechanism in the protein, and the simulation model would suggest a much higher selection pressure for the energy life switch sequence group. The possibility of using Kepler 444 as an example of ancient life in Galaxy with the associated exoplanets has been proposed and is further discussed in this report. Examples of arsenic metal bonding shift probed by Synchrotron-based X-ray spectroscopy data and Zn controlled FOXP2 regulated pathways in human and chimp brain studied tissue samples are studied in relationship to the sequence bioinformatics. The analysis results suggest that relatively large metal bonding shift amount is associated with low probability correlation R-sq outcome in the bioinformatics simulation.

The ribosome is a dynamic nanomachine responsible for coded protein synthesis. Its major subsystems were essentially in place at the time of the last universal common ancestor (LUCA). Ribosome evolutionary history thus potentially provides a window into the pre- LUCA world. This history begins with the origins of the peptidyl transferase center where the actual peptide is synthesized and then continues over an extended timeframe as additional functional centers including the GTPase center are added. The large ribosomal RNAs (rRNAs) have grown over time by an accretion process and a model exists that proposes a relative age of each accreted element. We have compared atomic resolution ribosome structures before and after EF-G bound GTP hydrolysis and thereby identified the location of 23 pivot points in the large rRNAs that facilitate ribosome dynamics. Pivots in small subunit helices h28 and h44 appear to be especially central to the process and according to the accretion model significantly older than the other helices containing pivots. Overall, the results suggest that ribosomal dynamics occurred in two phases. In the first phase, an inherently mobile h28/h44 combination provided the flexibility needed to create a dynamic ribosome that was essentially a Brownian machine. This addition likely made coded peptide synthesis possible by facilitating movement of a primitive mRNA. During the second phase, addition of pivoting elements and the creation of a factor binding site allowed the regulation of the inherent motion created by h28/h44. All of these events likely occurred before LUCA.

Horizontal gene transfer has been a major vehicle for efficient transfer of genetic materials among living species and could be one of the sources for noncoding DNA incorporation into a genome. Our previous study of lnc- RNA sequence complexity in terms of fractal dimension and information entropy shows a tight regulation among the studied genes in numerous diseases. The role of sequence complexity in horizontal transferred genes was investigated with Mealybug in symbiotic relation with a 139K genome microbe and Deinococcus radiodurans as examples. The fractal dimension and entropy showed correlation R-sq of 0.82 (N = 6) for the studied Deinococcus radiodurans sequences. For comparison the Deinococcus radiodurans oxidative stress tolerant catalase and superoxide dismutase genes under extracellular dGMP growth condition showed R-sq ~ 0.42 (N = 6); and the studied arsenate reductase horizontal transferred genes for toxicity survival in several microorganisms showed no correlation. Simulation results showed that R-sq < 0.4 would be improbable at less than one percent chance, suggestive of additional selection pressure when compared to the R-sq ~ 0.29 (N = 21) in the studied transferred genes in Mealybug. The mild correlation of R-sq ~ 0.5 for fractal dimension versus transcription level in the studied Deinococcus radiodurans sequences upon extracellular dGMP growth condition would suggest that lower fractal dimension with less electron density fluctuation favors higher transcription level.

The initial report of indigenous, non-racemic protein amino acids (L-enantiomer excess) in the Murchison meteorite was based on the fact that only eight of the twenty amino acids characteristic of all life on Earth was present in this stone¹. The absence of the other protein amino acids indicated that contamination subsequent to impact was highly unlikely. The development of new techniques for determining the stable isotope composition of individual amino acid enantiomers in the Murchison meteorite further documented the extraterrestrial origins of these compounds^2,3. The stable isotope approach continues to be used to document the occurrence of an extraterrestrial L-enantiomer excess of protein amino acids in other carbonaceous meteorites⁴. It has been suggested that this L-enantiomer excess may result from aqueous reprocessing on meteorite parent bodies^4,5. Preliminary results of simulation experiments are presented that are used to determine the extent to which the stable isotope compositions of amino acid constituents of carbonaceous meteorites may have been altered by these types of diagenetic processes subsequent to synthesis.

We report for the first time in situ observations of 5-50μm spherical carbonaceous structures in the Tissint Martian meteorite comprising of pyrite (FeS₂) cores and carbonaceous outer coatings. The structures are characterized as smooth immiscible spheres with curved boundaries occasionally following the contours of the pyrite inclusion. The structures bear striking resemblance to similar-sized immiscible carbonaceous spheres found in hydrothermal calcite vein deposits in the Mullaghwornia Quarry in central Ireland. Similar structures have been reported in Proterozoic and Ordovician sandstones from Canada as well as in a variety of astronomical sources including carbonaceous chondrites, chondritic IDPs and primitive chondritic meteorites. SEM and X-Ray elemental mapping confirmed the presence of organic carbon filling the crack and cleavage space in the pyroxene substrate, with further evidence of pyrite acting as an attractive substrate for the collection of organic matter. The detection of precipitated carbon collecting around pyrite grains is at variance with an igneous origin as proposed for the reduced organic component in Tissint, and is more consistent with a biogenetic origin.

Earlier studies of the Tissint Martian meteorite identified the presence of a number of 5-50μm carbonaceous spherical structures. SEM and EDS elemental spectra for 11 selected structures confirmed that they comprise of a carbonaceous outer coating with a inner core of FeS₂ (pyrite) and are characterised as immiscible globules with curved boundaries. Here we report on the results of Raman spectroscopic studies that unambiguously confirm the mantle as comprising of ‘disordered carbonaceous material’. R1 = I_D/I_G against Γ_D (cm^-1) band parameter plots of the carbonaceous coatings imply a complex precursor carbon inventory comparable to the precursor carbon component of materials of known biotic source (plants, algae, fungi, crustaceans, prokaryotes). Correlation between peak metamorphic temperatures and Raman D-band (Γ_D) parameters further indicate the carbonaceous component was subjected to a peak temperature of ~250 ^OC suggesting a possible link with the hydrothermal precipitation processes responsible for the formation of similar globules observed in hydrothermal calcite veins in central Ireland. Ω _G (cm^-1), Γ_G (cm^-1), Ω _D (cm^-1) and Γ_D (cm^-1) parameters further imply a level of crystallinity and disorder of the carbon component consistent with carbonaceous material recovered from a variety of non-terrestrial sources. Cl, N, O and S to C elemental ratios are typical of high volatility bituminous coals and distinctly higher than equivalent graphite standards.

The question of the contamination of meteorites by modern environmental microorganisms is an issue that has been raised since evidence for biological remains in carbonaceous meteorites was first published in the early 1960's.1-3 The contamination hypothesis has been raised for recent fossils of diatoms and filamentous cyanobacteria found embedded in the stones even though the nitrogen content of the fossils was below the 0.5% detection limit for Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) of the Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope. All modern biological contaminants should have nitrogen content in the detectable range of 2% to 20% indicating the remains are ancient fossils rather than living or Holocene cells. In our work, the possibility that extremophilic bacteria from our lab collection might be able to metabolize organic matter in the studied meteorites was tested. The potential toxic or inhibitory growth effects were also checked for different anaerobic cultures. UV exposed meteorite samples with consequent sterile extraction of the internal part were subjected to anaerobic cultivation techniques. As a result, eight anaerobic strains were isolated from internal and exterior parts of the studied meteorites. Preliminary results of their morphology, cytology, physiology, and molecular (16SrRNA sequencing) studies are presented and discussed in this article.

Is Life restricted to the Planet Earth? or Does life exist elsewhere in the Cosmos? The existence of extraterrestrial life is the fundamental question of Astrobiology. Detecting evidence for living organisms beyond our planet is even more difficult than finding fossilized remains of ancient organisms. Microbiological investigations during the past century have established the fundamental physical and chemical requirements and limits for life on Earth. It is now known that life requires only water, a source of energy, and a small suite of biogenic elements under a surprisingly wide range of environmental conditions. The discovery that microbial extremophiles live and grow over a very broad span of temperature, pH, salinity, pressure and radiation levels has greatly enhanced the possibility that life may be present on many bodies of our Solar System. Recent discoveries by Space Missions and Rovers have invalidated many long held paradigms regarding the distribution of water, organic chemicals and the possibility of life elsewhere in the Cosmos. This paper considers the discovery of water, ice and organics on distant planets, moons and comets and evidence for fossil organisms on Mars and in SNC and carbonaceous meteorites. Instruments and methods are considered for spectroscopy and fluorescence of biomolecules (e.g., photosynthetic pigments) for remote detection of conclusive evidence for extraterrestrial life. Optical Video Microscopy is discussed as a direct means for detecting extraterrestrial life using small visible light/UV video microscopes, with ample magnification to record motile bacteria and other living organisms in samples collected by Rovers or Landers. Locomotion of living cells of bacteria and other microbes requires great expenditure of energy and motile cells can be distinguished by video microscopy from the physico-chemical movements (by Brownian Motion, Diffusion or Current Drift) of dead cells, dust particles and abiotic mineral grains.

Primordial comets are comets made of Big Bang synthesized materials—water, ammonium, and carbon ices. These are the basic elements for life, so that these comets can be colonized by cyanobacteria that grow and bioengineer it for life dispersal. In addition, should they exist in large enough quantities, they would easily satisfy the qualifications for dark matter: low albedo with low visibility, gravitationally femtolensing, galactic negative viscosity, early galaxy formation seeds, and a self-interaction providing cosmic structure. The major arguments against their existence are the absence of metals (elements heavier than He) in ancient Population III stars, and the stringent requirements put on the Big Bang (BB) baryonic density by the BB nucleosynthesis (BBN) models. We argue that CI chondrites, hyperbolic comets, and carbon-enriched Pop III stars are all evidence for primordial comets. The BBN models provide the greater obstacle, but we argue that they crucially omit the magnetic field in their homogeneous, isotropic, “ideal baryon gas” model. Should large magnetic fields exist, not only would they undermine the 1-D models, but if their magnitude exceeds some critical field/density ratio, then the neutrino interacts with the fields, changing the equilibrium ratio of protons to neutrons. Since BBN models are strongly dependent on this ratio, magnetic fields have the potential to radically change the production of C, N, and O (CNO) to produce primordial comets. Then the universe from the earliest moments is not only seeded for galaxy formation, but it is seeded with the ingredients for life.

In 1871, Lord Kelvin suggested that the fossil record could be an account of bacterial arrivals on comets. In 1903, Svante Arrhenius suggested that spores could be transported on stellar winds without comets. In 1984, Sir Fred Hoyle claimed to see the infrared signature of vast clouds of dried bacteria and diatoms. In 2012, the Polonnaruwa carbonaceous chondrite revealed fossilized diatoms apparently living on a comet. However, Arrhenius' spores were thought to perish in the long transit between stars. Those calculations, however, assume that maximum velocities are limited by solar winds to ~5 km/s. Herbig-Haro objects and T-Tauri stars, however, are young stars with jets of several 100 km/s that might provide the necessary propulsion. The central engine of bipolar astrophysical jets is not presently understood, but we argue it is a kinetic plasma instability of a charged central magnetic body. We show how to make a bipolar jet in a belljar. The instability is non-linear, and thus very robust to scaling laws that map from microquasars to active galactic nuclei. We scale up to stellar sizes and recalculate the viability/transit-time for spores carried by supersonic jets, to show the viability of the Arrhenius mechanism.

Hydro-Gravitational-Dynamics (HGD) cosmology predicts that the 10¹² s (30 Kyr) H-He⁴ plasma protogalaxies become, by viscous fragmentation, proto-globular-star-cluster PGC clumps of a trillion small planets, at the 10¹³ s transition to gas. Larger planets and stars result from mergers of these hot 3000 K hydrogen planets in the PGCs. Stardust oxides of life chemicals C, N, O, Fe, Si seed the planets when the stars explode as supernovae. Hydrogen reduces the metal oxides and silicates to metal and rocky planet cores with massive hot water oceans at critical water temperature 647 K in which organic chemistry and life can develop. Because information is continually exchanged between the merging planets, they form a cosmic soup. The biological big bang occurs between 2 Myr when liquid water rains hot deep oceans in the cooling cosmos, and 8 Myr when the oceans freeze⁶. Thus, HGD cosmology explains the Hoyle/Wickramasinghe concept of cometary panspermia by giving a vast, hot, nourishing, cosmological primordial soup for abiogenesis, and the means for transmitting the resulting life forms and their evolving RNA/DNA mechanisms widely throughout the universe. A primordial astrophysical basis is provided for astrobiology by HGD cosmology. Concordance ΛCDMHC cosmology is rendered obsolete by the observation of complex life on Earth.

We report for the first time in situ observations of a relatively rare secondary iron arsenate-sulphate mineral named bukovskýite – Fe³⁺ ₂(As⁵⁺O₄)(S⁶⁺O₄)(OH)•7(H₂O) - found in a shock melt vein of the Tissint Martian meteorite. It is hypothesised that the mineral formed when high concentrations of aqueous H⁺, Fe(III), SO₄ and AsO₄ were maintained for long periods of time in microenvironments created within wet subsurface Martian clays. The aqueous H⁺, Fe(III), SO₄ and AsO₄ species arose from the microbial oxidation of FeS₂ with concurrent release of sequestrated As. The availability of aqueous AsO₄ would also be complemented by dissolution by-products of the microbial reduction of Feoxides influenced by dissolved organic matter that alters the redox state and the complexation of As, thus shifting As partitioning in favour of the solute phase. This hypothesis is substantially supported by SEM analysis of a 15μm spherical structure comprising of a carbonaceous outer coating with a inner core of FeS₂ (pyrite) that showed the pyrite surface with spherical pits, and chains of pits, with morphologies distinct from abiotic alteration features. The pits and channels have a clustered, geometric distribution, typical of microbial activity, and are closely comparable to biologically mediated microstructures created by Fe- and S-oxidising microbes in the laboratory. These microstructures are interpreted as trace fossils resulting from the attachment of bacteria to the pyrite surfaces.

We review the various manifestations of the evolution of life in extreme environments. We review those aspects of extremophiles that are most relevant for astrobiology. We are aware that geothermal energy triggering sources of heat in oceanic environments are not unique to our planet, a fact that was exposed by the Voyager mission images of volcanic activity on Io, the Jovian moon. Such activity exceeded by far what was known form terrestrial geology. The science of astrobiology has considered the possible presence of several moon oceans in the vicinity of both giant gas and icy planets. These watery environments include, not only Europa (strongly suggested by data from the Galileo mission), but the Voyager flybys exposed, not only the unusual geothermal activity on Io, but also the possible presence of subsurface oceans and some geothermal activity on the Neptune’s moon Triton. More recently, calculations of Hussmann and coworkers with available data do not exclude that even Uranus moons may be candidates for bearing subsurface oceans. These possibilities invite a challenge that we gladly welcome, of preliminary discussions of habitability of extremophiles in so far novel environments for the science of astrobiology. Nevertheless, such exploration is currently believed to be feasible with the new generations of missions suggested for the time window of 2030 - 2040, or even earlier. We are envisaging, not only the current exploration of the moons of Saturn, but in the coming years we expect to go beyond to Uranus and Neptune to include dwarf planets and trans-neptunian worlds. Consequently, it is necessary to begin questioning whether the Europa-like conditions for the evolution of microorganisms are repeatable elsewhere. At present three new missions are in the process of being formulated, including the selection of payloads that will be necessary for the exploration of the various so far unexplored moons.

We present phylogenetic analyses for four anaerobic bacterial isolates from samples collected in the Schirmacher Oasis and Lake Untersee in Antarctica. Near-full length of 16S rRNA genes were amplified from the four strains and sequenced for identification of their close relatives and their phylogenetic relationships. Strain A7P-90m shared a low 16S rRNA sequence identity of around 85% with its closest relatives within the Bacteroides phylum. This low level of sequence similarity suggests that it may represent a novel family within this phylum. The 16S rRNA sequence identity between strain LZ-22 and its closest relatives Granulicoccus phenolivorans and Propioniferax innocua within the Propionibacteriaceae family were 91.9% and 93.2%, respectively. This low level of sequence similarity suggests that it may represent a novel genus within this family. Strains 9G and ISLP-3 were closely related to known species of the genera Halolactibacillus and Sanguibacter, respectively. However, the 16S rRNA sequence identities between strains 9G and ISLP-3 and their close relatives were too high to make reliable taxonomic inferences (i.e., 99.9% between 9G and H. miurensis, and 98.6% between ISLP-3 and S. suaresii). Because the recA gene delivers higher resolution for taxonomic inferences than the 16S rRNA gene, the primers for conserved recA gene were designed for PCR amplification and sequencing from Halolactibacillus and Sanguibacter type strains. Strain 9G shared a recA sequence identity of 99.6% with its closest relative H. miurensis, suggesting that it is a subspecies. The recA sequence identity shared between strain ISLP-3 and its six closest relatives ranged from 85.9~90.2%. This result is consistent with this strain representing a novel species within the genus Sanguibacter. Based on the molecular study presented here and the phenotypic properties presented elsewhere, we propose that strain LZ-22 is a representative of a novel genus and species, with proposed names Raineyella antarctica gen. nov., sp. nov. Strain ISLP-3 is a representative of a novel species, Sanguibacter gelidistatuaria sp. nov. Strain A7p-90m may represent a novel family within the order Bacteroidales. Chemotaxonomic characterizations of these strains are underway to gather more evidence for the proposed classifications.

Previous two and three dimensional graph analysis of eco-physiological data of Archaea demonstrated specific geometry for distribution of major Prokaryotic groups in a hyperboloid function. The function of a two-sheet hyperboloid covered all known biological groups, and therefore, could be applied for the entire evolution of life on Earth. The vector of evolution was indicated from the point of hyper temperature, extreme acidity and low salinity to the point of low temperature and increased alkalinity and salinity. According to this vector, the following groups were chosen for the gene screening analysis. In the vector “High-Temperature → Low-Temperature” within extreme acidic pH (0-3), it is: 1) the hyperthermophilic Crenarchaeota – order Sulfolobales, 2) moderately thermophilic Euryarchaeota - Class Thermoplasmata, and 3) mesophilic acidophiles- genus Thiobacillus and others. In the vector “Low pH → High pH” the following groups were selected in three temperature ranges: a) Hyperthermophilic Archaea and Eubacteria, b) moderately thermophilic – representatives of the genera Anaerobacter and Anoxybacillus, and c) mesophilic haloalkaliphiles (Eubacteria and Archaea). The genes associated with acidophily (H⁺ pump), chemolitho-autotrophy (proteins of biochemichal cycles), polymerases, and histones were proposed for the first vector, and for the second vector the genes associated with halo-alkaliphily (Na⁺ pumps), enzymes of organotrophic metabolisms (sugar- and proteolytics), and others were indicated for the screening. Here, an introduction to the phylogenetic constant (ρ_η) is presented and discussed. This universal characteristic is calculated for two principally different life forms –Prokaryotes and Eukaryotes; Existence of the second type of living forms is impossible without the first one. The number of chromosomes in Prokaryotic organisms is limited to one (with very rare exceptions, to two), while in Eukaryotic organisms this number is larger. Currently, accumulation of data for genome sequences is in progress: about 3,500 draft sequences of genomes are available (of the total 12,000 species Bacteria and Archaea). The possibility of confirmation of the previously proposed mathematical model with an approach for genes screening in determined key groups of microorganisms in genomes databases is outlined and discussed in this article.

The sulfate-reducing bacteria can be traced back to 3.5 billion years ago. The thermodynamics details of the sulfur cycle have been well documented. A recent sulfate-reducing bacteria report (Robator, Jungbluth, et al , 2015 Jan, Front. Microbiol) with Genbank nucleotide data has been analyzed in terms of the sulfite reductase (dsrAB) via fractal dimension and entropy values. Comparison to oil field sulfate-reducing sequences was included. The AUCG translational mass fractal dimension versus ATCG transcriptional mass fractal dimension for the low temperature dsrB and dsrA sequences reported in Reference Thirteen shows correlation R-sq ~ 0.79 , with a probably of about 3% in simulation. A recent report of using Cystathionine gamma-lyase sequence to produce CdS quantum dot in a biological method, where the sulfur is reduced just like in the H2S production process, was included for comparison. The AUCG mass fractal dimension versus ATCG mass fractal dimension for the Cystathionine gamma-lyase sequences was found to have R-sq of 0.72, similar to the low temperature dissimilatory sulfite reductase dsr group with 3% probability, in contrary to the oil field group having R-sq ~ 0.94, a high probable outcome in the simulation. The other two simulation histograms, namely, fractal dimension versus entropy R-sq outcome values, and di-nucleotide entropy versus mono-nucleotide entropy R-sq outcome values are also discussed in the data analysis focusing on low probability outcomes.

This paper was withdrawn by the publisher on 15 October 2015.

The wet-comet model (WCM) of the structure and composition of comets was developed in 2005 to replace the “dirty-snowball” model (DSM) of Fred Whipple, because the first comet flybys of P/Halley “armada” revealed a very different landscape. Subsequent flybys of P/Borrelly, P/Wild-2, P/Hartley, P/Tempel-1 have confirmed and refined the model, so that we confidently predicted that the Rosetta mission would encounter a prolate, tumbling, concrete-encrusted, black comet: P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Unfortunately, the Philae lander team was preparing for a DSM and the anchors bounced off the concrete surface, but the orbiter has returned spec- tacular pictures of every crevice, which confirm and extend the WCM yet a sixth time. We report of what we predicted, what was observed, and several unexpected results from the ROSETTA mission.

The recently announced confirmation of a global ocean beneath the icy outer shell of the Saturnian moon Enceladus provides strong support for cometary panspermia. Recent discoveries have shown that cyanobacteria, diatoms and other photosynthetic microphytoplankton live in the deep, dark bathysphere of the terrestrial oceans. Evidence for liquid water regimes that might harbour life and organics on other icy moons, comets and Pluto adds credence to the concept of a single connected microbial biosphere in the solar system. These discoveries provide additional support for the possibility that life may be widely distributed throughout the distant regions of the Solar System and the validity of the hypothesis of Panspermia.