NASA Researchers Discover Life's Building Block in Comet

[BurtWorm]

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/releases/2009/09-100AR.html

August 17, 2009 RELEASE : 09-100AR NASA Researchers Discover Life's Building Block in Comet MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- NASA scientists have discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life, in samples of comet Wild 2 returned by NASA's Stardust spacecraft.

"Glycine is an amino acid used by living organisms to make proteins, and this is the first time an amino acid has been found in a comet," said Jamie Elsila of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. "Our discovery supports the theory that some of life's ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts."

Elsila is the lead author of a paper on this research accepted for publication in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science. The research was presented during the meeting of the American Chemical Society at the Marriott Metro Center, Washington, DC, Aug. 16, 2009.

"The discovery of glycine in a comet supports the idea that the fundamental building blocks of life are prevalent in space, and strengthens the argument that life in the universe may be common rather than rare," said Carl Pilcher, director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute headquartered at NASA Ames Research Center, which co-funded the research.

Proteins are the workhorse molecules of life, used in everything from structures like hair to enzymes, the catalysts that speed up or regulate chemical reactions. Just as the 26 letters of the alphabet are arranged in limitless combinations to make words, life uses 20 different amino acids in a huge variety of arrangements to build millions of different proteins.

Stardust passed through dense gas and dust surrounding the icy nucleus of Wild 2 (pronounced "Vilt-2") on January 2, 2004. As the spacecraft flew through this material, a special collection grid filled with aerogel – a novel sponge-like material that's more than 99 percent empty space – gently captured samples of the comet's gas and dust. The grid was stowed in a capsule which detached from the spacecraft and parachuted to Earth on January 15, 2006. Since then, scientists around the world have been busy analyzing the samples to learn the secrets of comet formation and our solar system's history.

...

[rd_kent]

1. Hmmm, I cannot wait for the fundies to try and explain this one.

:popcorn:

[mikelgb]

2. thats easy - comets are His Seed

[Robb]

5. Oh, the mental picture. nt

[redqueen]

10. No kidding!

:rofl:

[Uncle Joe]

7. Cosmic sperm cells begetting life on a primordial rocky planet (ovum) continually

subdividing or gestating in the expanding and contracting universal uterus and all that dark matter; holding everything together while it develops is the equivalent of placenta.

That's my take on it.

[BurtWorm]

3. How Nasa eliminated the possibility that the glycine was on the instruments before leaving earth

...

Earlier, preliminary analysis in the Goddard labs detected glycine in both the foil and a sample of the aerogel. However, since glycine is used by terrestrial life, at first the team was unable to rule out contamination from sources on Earth. "It was possible that the glycine we found originated from handling or manufacture of the Stardust spacecraft itself," said Elsila. The new research used isotopic analysis of the foil to rule out that possibility.

Isotopes are versions of an element with different weights or masses; for example, the most common carbon atom, Carbon 12, has six protons and six neutrons in its center (nucleus). However, the Carbon 13 isotope is heavier because it has an extra neutron in its nucleus. A glycine molecule from space will tend to have more of the heavier Carbon 13 atoms in it than glycine that's from Earth. That is what the team found. "We discovered that the Stardust-returned glycine has an extraterrestrial carbon isotope signature, indicating that it originated on the comet," said Elsila.

...

[Geoff R. Casavant]

11. They also could have checked the chirality (handedness)

Glycine used by terrestrial living things is exclusively left-handed, while in non-living contexts (and presumably outer space) the molecules are more or less equally left- and right- handed.

[lunatica]

4. Funny to think that we are the detritus of space

And with this discovery we can be assured that much more detritus has been spread and is being spread throughout the universe.

We are space trash. Floating pieces of space flotsam and jetsam who were dropped on the planet as space trash. Take that you Fundies!

:rofl:

[piratefish08]

6. Jeebus rode dinosaurs AND comets!

That is BADASS Chuck Norris style!!

[Botany]

8. we started out as buckballs

[Arugula Latte]

9. For those who are intently focused on the last two thousand years,

take a look at this and let the insignificance of that blip of time wash over you ... I give you the history of the universe if it were condensed to one Earth year (note that Jebus doesn't show up until about two seconds before midnight on Dec. 31st):