I just want to say, this is the first thing added to this thread that is substantial. That is all.

Nothing could remain viable in deep space for BILLIONS of years.

If it came from mars (the only place in our solar system which could have plausibly sustained life), it would have been in space for billions of years, since that's how long it's been barren.

If it drifted here from another star system, also billions of years (possibly hundreds of millions from the our very nearest neighbors).

Mathematically we are so many orders of magnitude away from plausible or possible, that I'm happy to call it impossible.

Occams Razor x 10^35

So what your have admitted to is that there is a possibility!! Off to update the wikipedia page that Ive been given gatekeeper status to.

Seriosly though.....where do the viruses that have been found in outerspace come from?

All of them came from Earth.

Rickair's analysis is most likely correct. I generally refrain from thinking in absolutes, so I a default to saying "There's always a chance.". But, seriously, it's not effing likely. I can contrive a scenario where something survives space travel for eons, especially trapped in a large-ish hunk of material. I can also cite the tenacity of life, our discovery of cryovolcanoes on asteroids and our rapidly changing picture of life's viability just within our own solar system. But, all of this doesn't address what's most likely. It's also not supported by the evidence we laypeople have to go by.

If we believe this bug is from space we are ignoring all the markers that show this bug is terrestrial (stereochemistry, the ability to insert infect earth-mammals, preexisting adaptations to mammalian immune systems, similarity to other coronaviruses that have similar effects, etc.). So to think this bug is most likely from space we have to ignore the preponderance of evidence and believe some very poorly supported ideas.

Wickramshinghe has claimed extraterrestrial origins to SARS, some red rain events in India and other things. He consistently grasps at weak evidence, ignores contradictory evidence and frequently is on TV, youtube, etc. He's been trying to hitch his ideas to anything that grabs the public's attention. I try not to fuel clickbait, but I'd be curious to see if he's behind the "COVID-19 is from Space" noise this time. So publication is not equivalent to good science.

Spectacular claims require spectacular evidence. Also ignoring the obvious requires worthwhile justification and evidence. So bugs in space, maybe. COVID from space: not effing likely.

Also, it's kind of nice to talk about science and space instead of fighting about APC stuff for a change.

I'm all jazzed talking about this now. So prions are very tenacious information-encoding, self-replicating proteins. We know them from Mad Cow and some other diseases. Frequently they cause forms of encephalitis. They survive at temperatures up to 400C.

Proteins fold and form bonds that make them much, much more resilient to damage than nucleic acids or even individual nucleotides. If we were to discover space-aids, my money would be on something like a prion riding around inside a carbonaceous condrite or something.

So if any of us wind up travelling to a base on the moons of Jupiter, remember not to lick the meteorites. I guess the same goes for meteorites here. Don't lick the meteorites, man. Just don't do it!

Is a virus classed as life? I thought it existed in the realm of not alive but not really dead, sort of in purgatory. Despite being the self proclaimed APC Astro-Biology resident expert I sometimes find there are a few small gaps in my knowledge on the topic.

If you don't like arguing on APC then this list will keep you busy, I have seen most ( and read a few). I class it as part of my professional development.

I also enjoy the time travel genre.

https://spacenews.com/11-must-see-sp...s-about-space/

Prions and viruses are not really life, a more apt description would be organic structures which can interfere with living organisms, and in process hijacking the organism's processes or components to replicate.

Like most things - it depends on what you read. Still debate on whether viruses are ALIVE or not.

Moon pies okay?

Moon pies, yes. Cow pies...um...