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Chandra Wickramasinghe
Chandra Wickramasinghe at the University of Buckingham
Born	Nalin Chandra Wickramasinghe (1939-01-20) 20 January 1939 (age 85) Colombo, British Ceylon
Known for	Organic composition of cosmic dust
Scientific career
Fields	Astronomy and mathematics

Nalin Chandra Wickramasinghe (born 20 January 1939) is a Sri Lankan-born British mathematician. He is currently Director of the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology, a private company and charity.

He was a student and collaborator of Fred Hoyle. Their joint work on the infrared spectra of interstellar grains led to developing the hypothesis of panspermia. It proposes that cosmic dust in the interstellar medium and in comets is partly organic, and that life on Earth was 'seeded' from space rather than arising through abiogenesis on earth.

The fundamental tenet of the work of Chandra Wickramasinghe is that "Life is a Cosmic Phenomenon".

Based on the latest results of the Kepler Mission, NASA has estimated there are approximately 144 Billion earth-like exoplanets around sun-like stars. This fact alone has caused a change in attitude to the probable existence of extraterrestrial life - certainly microbial life and statistically also intelligent life. Not only are senior academic figures supporting this paradigm change, but a new generation of NASA scientists have now openly embraced the "search for life" . This consciousness change supported by the media has brought the ideas of Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe back into the public eye, and fellow Astrobiologists and Astrophysicists are revisiting their published works..

Education

Wickramasinghe studied at Royal College, Colombo, the University of Ceylon where he graduated in 1960 with a BSc First Class Honours degree in mathematics, and at Trinity College, Cambridge and Jesus College, Cambridge where he obtained his PhD and ScD degrees. He was previously Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge (1963-1973); Professor and Head of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Astronomy at University College Cardiff (1973-1988); Professor in the School of Mathematics, University of Wales College of Cardiff (1988-1998); and Professor and Director of the Cardiff Centre for Astrobiology (1999-2011).

Scientific career

In 1960 he commenced work in Cambridge on his PhD degree under the supervision of the late Sir Fred Hoyle, and published his first scientific paper "On Graphite Particles as Interstellar Grains” in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1962. He was awarded a PhD degree in Mathematics in 1963 and was elected a Fellow of Jesus College Cambridge in the same year. In the following year he was appointed a Staff Member of the Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge. Here he continued to work on the nature of interstellar dust, publishing many papers in this field that led to a shift of emphasis in astronomy from inorganic dust models to organic grains.

My most significant astronomical contribution was to develop the theory of organic grains in comets and in the interstellar medium. This was done during the 1970s and 1980s, and it is now generally accepted! I feel I also played a part in the birth of the science of astrobiology.

He published the first definitive book on Interstellar Grains in 1967. He has made many contributions to this field, publishing over 350 papers in peer-reviewed journals, over 75 in Nature (journal). In 1974 he first proposed the hypothesis that some dust in interstellar space was largely organic (contain carbon), which Wickramasinghe later proved to be correct. Hoyle and Wickramasinghe further contended that extraterrestrial life forms continue to enter the Earth's atmosphere, and may be responsible for epidemic outbreaks, new diseases, and the genetic novelty necessary for macroevolution. In a virtual presentation on April 7, 2009, physicist Stephen Hawking endorsed the hypothesis. Chandra Wickramasinghe had the longest running collaboration with Fred Hoyle and is responsible for forging a link between biology and astronomy in the late 1970s.

Wickramasinghe was appointed a consultant and advisor to the President of Sri Lanka in 1982-84, and played a key role in founding the Institute of Fundamental Studies in Sri Lanka.

Detection of living cells in the stratosphere

On the 20 January 2001 the Indian Space Research Organisation conducted a balloon flight from Hyderabad, India to collect stratospheric dust from a height of 41 km with a view to testing for the presence of living cells. The collaborators on this project included a team of UK scientists led by Wickramasinghe. In a paper presented at a SPIE conference in San Diego in 2002 the detection of evidence for viable microorganisms from 41 km was presented. | NAME =Wickramasinghe, Chandra | ALTERNATIVE NAMES = | SHORT DESCRIPTION =Astronomer | DATE OF BIRTH =20 January 1939 | PLACE OF BIRTH =Sri Lanka | DATE OF DEATH = | PLACE OF DEATH = }}

1. ^ Reich, Eugenie Samuel (2011-03-17). "Closed astrobiology centre to be reborn as private company". Nature News. Nature Publishing Group.
2. "Historical background — University of Buckingham". Buckingham.ac.uk. Retrieved 2013-01-18.
3. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/releases/2012/12-35.html
4. "Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe — University of Buckingham". Buckingham.ac.uk. Retrieved 2013-01-18.
5. "This Week's Citation Classic" (PDF). ISI Current Contents. 1986-06-02. Retrieved 2013-01-18.
6. "Archive of key historical publications — University of Buckingham". Buckingham.ac.uk. 1980-04-03. Retrieved 2013-01-18.
7. "Interstellar grains (Book, 1967)". . Retrieved 2013-01-18.
8. Nature, vol: 252, 462, 1974; and Nature,Vol 268, 610, 1977.
9. Wickramasinghe, D. T. & Allen, D. A. The 3.4-µm interstellar absorption feature. Nature 287, 518−519 (1980). Allen, D. A. & Wickramasinghe, D. T. Diffuse interstellar absorption bands between 2.9 and 4.0 µm. Nature 294, 239−240 (1981). Wickramasinghe, D. T. & Allen, D. A. Three components of 3–4 μm absorption bands. Astrophys. Space Sci. 97, 369−378 (1983).
10. Fred Hoyle, Chandra Wickramasinghe and John Watson (1986). Viruses from Space and Related Matters. University College Cardiff Press.
11. "Ruminations on other worlds". StatePress.com. April 7, 2009. Retrieved 2012-10-10. {{cite news}}: |first= missing |last= (help)

• 1939 births
• Living people
• British astronomers
• Panspermia
• People of British Ceylon
• Academics of the University of Cambridge
• Academics of Cardiff University
• Fellows of Jesus College, Cambridge
• Alumni of the Royal College, Colombo
• Alumni of the University of Ceylon
• Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
• People from Colombo
• Welsh people of Sri Lankan descent
• Sinhalese people