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Prof. Chandra Wickramasinghe awarded MBE Source:Island A University of Buckingham professor, whose theory that comets carry the bacteria of life is now becoming part of mainstream science, has been awarded an MBE for services to science, astronomy and astrobiology. Prof Chandra Wickramasinghe, an honorary professor at the University of Buckingham, is a world-renowned astrophysicist and a pioneer of astrobiology. In the late 1970s, together with the astronomer the late Sir Fred Hoyle, Prof Wickramasinghe proposed the theory that comets carry the seeds of life – bacteria and viruses – and that life is distributed throughout the universe. According to Prof Wickramasinghe, life on earth began with the introduction of bacteria from comets 4,200 million years ago and its subsequent evolution was spurred on with the continuing arrival of new bacteria. ...