2001 Jan --- balloon
mission to gather microbes in the stratosphere (40 km up);
studied by Wickramasinghe; a ton of them rained down to Earth; but could
be of terrestrial origin too
2002 Dec --- published in
FEMS
Letters (a microbiology journal) by Milton Wainwright of analysis of the
same sample à isolation of a fungus and two
bacteria to have "notable differences in their
detailed properties, possibly pointing to a different
origin."
Panspermia --- Life is
ubiquitous in the Universe. The Earth was
seeded in the past, and is still being seeded, with microrganisms
from comets.