We all catch cold or flu at some time or the other. When we send children to school and they come back home sneezing, we wonder if somebody in his class had cold. This is quite natural. We think this way because we know common cold is spread by a virus and is contagious.
But the cold and flu we suffer from may not be passed on to us by a classmate, or by our visiting neighbours. The reason could be visitors from outer space – the comets. Many deadly diseases have arrived in the same way as the earth is ravaged every time a comet appears. Some even believe it is inauspicious to see a comet directly. It may be a superstition but could this be the reason behind it?
This controversial thesis has been put forward by two eminent astronomers from the U.K., Prof. Chandra Wickramasinghe and Sir Fred Hoyle. They claim that the dust from outer space contains minute living organisms which thrive and multiply in the Earth’s friendly atmosphere to cause widespread diseases.
The comets are made up of interstellar dust mixed with ice and frozen gases. When a comet visits our solar system some of its dust enters the Earth’s atmosphere. The minute living organisms grow, spread, and cause diseases. Two visits by the Halley’s Comet ( which orbits the around the sun in 75 and 78 years) coincided with the spread of Asian flu. The debris from the comet could have very well caused this large-scale outbreak of diseases.
According to WHO, small pox has been completely eradicated from the Earth. But it might be caused again by another comet which might return after a few centuries.
This theory’s credibility gained momentum only in 1986. The space probes flying close to Halley’s Comet revealed that the gases given out by the comet contained carbon and hydrogen – the two elements vital for life. Further investigations and a closer look at the visiting comets may uphold this study.
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