Meteorites and life bricks

Four “building blocks” form the basis of all life on Earth. Two were once discovered in meteorites. The latter two have just been discovered in meteorites.

To be clear, this is not the “evidence” that life on Earth originated from meteorites. The basic ingredients may already be present on our planet. Or perhaps life may have followed a path other than that of these four “building blocks” – the nucleic acids designated by the letters A, C, T, and G, which make up the genetic “alphabet” of all living things on Earth.

But that’s at least part of the puzzle, he assured Japanese and American researchers published April 26 in the magazine Nature Communications. They observed C (cytosine) and T (thymine) in three meteorites. Furthermore it, The ratio of these two compounds It will distinguish them sufficiently from what is in the soil around these researchers to rule out the soil “contamination” hypothesis: in other words, this C and this T would have an extraterrestrial origin, and very ancient, either ended 4 billion years ago, when these meteorites formed in The space.

all experts Not willing to refuse Pollution hypothesis for these meteorites. But the fact remains that the hypothesis of “seeding” by meteorites has been taken seriously for nearly sixty years since the first two bricks (Adenine and Guanine) were discovered in other cosmic pebbles. Many researchers have simply abandoned the possibility of detecting the other two, due to the tiny amounts involved. In this context, research by astrochemist Yasuhiro Oba, of Hokkaido University, is of interest, because in the absence of evidence, Brings a new way To prospect for other meteorites, looking for hitherto undetectable traces.

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