NASA finds proof that amino acid components in meteorites originate in space.
This is exciting news. NASA-funded researchers have evidence that some building blocks of DNA, the molecule that carries the genetic instructions for life, found in meteorites were likely created in space. The research gives support to the theory that a “kit” of ready-made parts created in space and delivered to Earth by meteorite and comet impacts assisted the origin of life. We may all be immigrants on Earth.
By Bill Steigerwald
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
NASA-funded researchers have evidence that some building blocks of DNA, the molecule that carries the genetic instructions for life, found in meteorites were likely created in space. The research gives support to the theory that a “kit” of ready-made parts created in space and delivered to Earth by meteorite and comet impacts assisted the origin of life.
“People have been discovering components of DNA in meteorites since the 1960’s, but researchers were unsure whether they were really created in space or if instead they came from contamination by terrestrial life,” said Dr. Michael Callahan of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “For the first time, we have three lines of evidence that together give us confidence these DNA building blocks actually were created in space.” Callahan is lead author of a paper on the discovery appearing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
The discovery adds to a growing body of evidence that the chemistry inside asteroids and comets is capable of making building blocks of essential biological molecules.
For example, previously, these scientists at the Goddard Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory have found amino acids in samples of comet Wild 2 from NASA’s Stardust mission, and in various carbon-rich meteorites. Amino acids are used to make proteins, the workhorse molecules of life, used in everything from structures like hair to enzymes, the catalysts that speed up or regulate chemical reactions.
In the new work, the Goddard team ground up samples of twelve carbon-rich meteorites, nine of which were recovered from Antarctica. They extracted each sample with a solution of formic acid and ran them through a liquid chromatograph, an instrument that separates a mixture of compounds. They further analyzed the samples with a mass spectrometer, which helps determine the chemical structure of compounds.
The team found adenine and guanine, which are components of DNA called nucleobases, as well as hypoxanthine and xanthine. DNA resembles a spiral ladder; adenine and guanine connect with two other nucleobases to form the rungs of the ladder. They are part of the code that tells the cellular machinery which proteins to make. Hypoxanthine and xanthine are not found in DNA, but are used in other biological processes.
Also, in two of the meteorites, the team discovered for the first time trace amounts of three molecules related to nucleobases: purine, 2,6-diaminopurine, and 6,8-diaminopurine; the latter two almost never used in biology. These compounds have the same core molecule as nucleobases but with a structure added or removed.
It’s these nucleobase-related molecules, called nucleobase analogs, which provide the first piece of evidence that the compounds in the meteorites came from space and not terrestrial contamination. “You would not expect to see these nucleobase analogs if contamination from terrestrial life was the source, because they’re not used in biology, aside from one report of 2,6-diaminopurine occurring in a virus (cyanophage S-2L),” said Callahan. “However, if asteroids are behaving like chemical ‘factories’ cranking out prebiotic material, you would expect them to produce many variants of nucleobases, not just the biological ones, due to the wide variety of ingredients and conditions in each asteroid.”
The second piece of evidence involved research to further rule out the possibility of terrestrial contamination as a source of these molecules. The team also analyzed an eight-kilogram (17.64-pound) sample of ice from Antarctica, where most of the meteorites in the study were found, with the same methods used on the meteorites. The amounts of the two nucleobases, plus hypoxanthine and xanthine, found in the ice were much lower — parts per trillion — than in the meteorites, where they were generally present at several parts per billion. More significantly, none of the nucleobase analogs were detected in the ice sample. One of the meteorites with nucleobase analog molecules fell in Australia, and the team also analyzed a soil sample collected near the fall site. As with the ice sample, the soil sample had none of the nucleobase analog molecules present in the meteorite.
Thirdly, the team found these nucleobases — both the biological and non-biological ones — were produced in a completely non-biological reaction. “In the lab, an identical suite of nucleobases and nucleobase analogs were generated in non-biological chemical reactions containing hydrogen cyanide, ammonia, and water. This provides a plausible mechanism for their synthesis in the asteroid parent bodies, and supports the notion that they are extraterrestrial,” says Callahan.
“In fact, there seems to be a ‘goldilocks’ class of meteorite, the so-called CM2 meteorites, where conditions are just right to make more of these molecules,” adds Callahan.
The team includes Callahan and Drs. Jennifer C. Stern, Daniel P. Glavin, and Jason P. Dworkin of NASA Goddard’s Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory; Ms. Karen E. Smith and Dr. Christopher H. House of Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pa.; Dr. H. James Cleaves II of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC; and Dr. Josef Ruzicka of Thermo Fisher Scientific, Somerset, N.J. The research was funded by the NASA Astrobiology Institute, the Goddard Center for Astrobiology, the NASA Astrobiology: Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology Program, and the NASA Postdoctoral Program.
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kuhncat,
I invite you to read the book God and the Astronomers. It is a short book and very well written. I think you will find it enlightening.
John B,
Wikipedia says “Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[2] Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.[3] Atheism is contrasted with theism,[4][5] which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.[5][6]”
These are all descriptions of a belief system in which God or gods do not exist.
Smokey says:
August 12, 2011 at 2:52 pm
John B,
Atheism is a Belief. Deal with it.
——————-
Atheism is often defined as a *lack* of belief in deities, as it is in the wikipedia entry I posted. That is certainly my position. I am British, I get the impression you are American (correct me if I am wrong). I suspect the term is popularly interpreted differently in our respective cultures.
kuhncat,
Your links led me to this Scientific American article which describe briefly the events describe in greater detail in Jastrow’s book. As the article says, there are many misconceptions about the Big Bang, held even by astronomers. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=misconceptions-about-the-2005-03
Eric Anderson says:
To take your example, if the brick falls and breaks into splinters and the splinters fall into place spelling the first half dozen lines of Shakespeare’s sonnet, then we would have a closer analogy.
I understand that perfectly well. You missed my point that the analogy is flawed. The current biochemistry on earth is not equivalent to “Shakespeare’s sonnet”. It’s just a chance development that took place, among many other possible chance developments which just didn’t happen, but for all we know could have, and maybe do on some other planets.
If in your mind it’s like a “work of art”, you merely perceive it that way because it’s the only one you know. Incidentally life on earth is not “perfect” even on the macroscopic scale. There are many organisms around whose design leaves a lot to be desired. That includes humans by the way. 🙂 If an engineer would redesign humans, he’d change a couple of obvious blunders.
I found an interesting cosmology paper titled UNDERSTANDING OUR UNIVERSE: CURRENT STATUS AND OPEN ISSUES by T. Padmanabhan, an senior researcher in India. See
http://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0503107v1
While discussing questions cosmologists may face after a public lecture, he writes:
The second question is: How (and why!) was the universe created and what happened before the big bang? The cosmologist giving the public lecture usually mumbles something about requiring a quantum gravity model to circumvent the classical singularity — but we really have no idea! String theory offers no insight; the implications of loop quantum gravity for quantum cosmology have attracted fair mount of attention recently45 but it is fair to say we still do not know how (and why) the universe came into being.
He admits we do not know how or why the universe came into being, an important aspect of theoretical physics. Others have said it a bit differently by admitting the beginning of the universe requires a cause – the existence of something or Someone before the universe – the supernatural. I do not know Padmanabhan’s position on Intelligent Design, but current knowledge of cosmology certainly cannot rule out ID and ID certainly could be the answer to important questions.
John B,
Note that I am not getting into philosopical or religious arguments, but rather, simply clarifying definitions. Atheists have a true belief system with a faith just as strong as any religious person’s, and they proselytize just as much. An agnostic, on the other hand, just isn’t sure; more of a skeptic.
Tucci78:
Great response, though it still seems that your own definition of “faith” and “trust” are as you say ” nothing more than the acknowledgement of a lamentable tendency seen among large numbers of people.” My idea of “faith” is far from placing blind trust in someone, it implies a great understanding in fact. We as a society have faith in the scientific method because we have observed it to hold true, just as we hold 1 + 1 to equal 2. For me to use even a method of something still shows I have faith in that system because I know it to work. Faith is not devoid of fact, that is blind faith which really isn’t faith. I double and triple check my work because I don’t have complete faith everything is correct, does faith disapear when I finally do verify it?
I actually bounced my response of someone else I know and we agreed the science in my chair experiement was in performing the observations and tests, the use of it falls more into trust, faith, philosophy, what have you. Having followed this thought I agree with you that creatinism, however much they try the scientific method, always end up in the philosophical realm with their conclusions, which I why I would never bother to call is science. I also think many of the conclusions of evolution are just as so, this article is a great example. If the “Seeds of life on Earth ” had been left off as one commenter stated, you woudn’t necessarilly have all this debate on origins, because science cannot as yet prove it. Not to say the question is wrong, it just may be better kept to oneself until science can prove it (if it can). I would like to see the school system teach less complicated science (like gravity, how cows work, chemical reactions) and leave the origin of life to philosophy for now. Let’s set the basics first.
As a last note I would tone down on the “Great Sky Pixie crap,” just because you may not like belief in God (sorry if I assume wrong), you still may be a little more discrete and save a little face if you end up like the man opposite Lazarus. If anything you can still take from the phrase “a soft answer turns away wrath.” People don’t like name calling.
On a lighter note someone I knew that gave the chair example actually sat in it and it fell apart, much to his shock. He should of employed a little more science into his observation of the chair before trusting it.
anorak2:
“If an engineer would redesign humans, he’d change a couple of obvious blunders.”
And like any engineer he would miss a few things and have to go through a revision, only to realize his got a part mirrored and it doesn’t work right, so another darn engineering change notice. Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Smokey says:
August 12, 2011 at 4:09 pm
John B,
Note that I am not getting into philosopical or religious arguments, but rather, simply clarifying definitions. Atheists have a true belief system with a faith as strong as any religious person’s, and they proselytize just as much. An agnostic, on the other hand, just isn’t sure; more of a skeptic.
——————–
No, you are making up your own definitions. Wikipedia, which is at least a bit more mainstream than Smokeypedia, says “Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[2] Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.[3]”
I go with [3] (or [1] if you will accept that rejecting a belief is not the same thing as holding the opposite belief).
anorak2: “There are many organisms around whose design leaves a lot to be desired. That includes humans by the way. 🙂 If an engineer would redesign humans, he’d change a couple of obvious blunders.”
Perhaps there are things that could be improved, but: (i) that does not mean the system was not designed, and (ii) I have seen evolutionists claiming design blunders for a long time, but never, not once, has the individual ever been able to put forth a concrete, engineering standard explanation of exactly what should be changed and how it would affect other engineering constraints. At the same time, one by one over the years the alleged design defects turn out to be either a reasonable engineering decision or downright ingenious (like the so-called backwards wiring of the eye, for example).
The “poor design” argument fails on multiple levels.
Tucci78,
“Done properly. science is self-correcting. ”
This is a Utopian statement. Science is done by excitable types like you also. When you are screaming at people, judging others with basis, you probably aren’t making the best judgements. Same thing happens in Science when we regular HUMANS find we have conflicting needs and desires. We do not always make the best judgements that allow Science to be self correcting. It can take generations for a perversion to work its way out, especailly if the social milieu supports that perversion.
Eric Anderson says:
August 12, 2011 at 5:10 pm
…
The “poor design” argument fails on multiple levels.
————–
It’s not “poor design” that ID propenents should have a problem with, since evolution will weedle out really bad “designs” anyway. The question I think the ID crowd have the most problem with is this: if each species were designed, why are their similarities and differences exactly what you would expect form evolutionary relationships? For example, why do all mammals have hair and all birds have feathers? If they had been designed, you might have expected a bat to have feathers. Why do arms, legs, wings and fins all have the same basi bone structure? Everywhere you look you see families of species, sharing traits with modifications exactly as if they had evolved. And now we can look at the genetic level, those relationshuips are seen even more clearly.
So why would “the desgner” make it look so much like all life evolved from one or a few common forms (as Darwin put it)?
@Eric Anderson
Perhaps there are things that could be improved, but: (i) that does not mean the system was not designed
You’re right. But it means we weren’t designed by an intelligent being, much less a loving, caring an omnipotent one. Have you got any suggestion for a dumb, uncaring being who could have designed us?
and (ii) I have seen evolutionists claiming design blunders for a long time, but never, not once, has the individual ever been able to put forth a concrete, engineering standard explanation of exactly what should be changed
The human eye, or really the the eye of all vertebrates, whose basic design is the same, because we all evolved from the same original vertebrate which was some sort of primitive fish you know *wink* *wink* 🙂
It’s designed backwards. Having the optical nerves in front of the retina where they block some of the light, then punch a hole through the retina to allow the nerves through thus creating the famous blind spot, and then apply some crude image processing to cover up the blunder is really stupid. It’s the equivalent of a video camera with the wiring in front of the CCD chip, with extra circuitry added to remove the shadow of the wiring from the image.
Eyes evolved several times independently, the other designs are not as stupid. But we’re stuck with the silly one.
@anorak2
Very well put. And the real question is not whether the human eye is “good” or “bad”, but why it is the same “design” as in all other vertebrates, but different to insects, which are different to cephalopods, and so on.
Anorak2,
“If in your mind it’s like a “work of art”, you merely perceive it that way because it’s the only one you know.”
A couple of questions please. How do you explain the accidental through random combination fo a backup system that copies and replaces damaged strands?
How do you explain the fact that on genome controsa the expression of some features in the other genome where there are two parent contributing?
How do you explain the interim steps when the organism is quite sensitive to damage or severely reduce in their capacity to move or whatever when one limb or organ type is changing into another? Doesn’t Evolution require a certain amount of survivability and Natural Selection that would wipe out these partial changes from random mutations?
How do you explain that 150 Years later we do NOT see ANY transitional forms?? Actually my questions answer that question, but leave open how the heck evolution actually works.
I am still laughing about intelligent people desperately trying to get the Punctuated Equilibrium hypothesis accepted as a replacement for the old Mutation/Survival of the Fittest hypothesis.
Oh, and anorak2,
whenever you are ready to present your complete, self replicating, widely adaptable, self aware design, I am sure we will all be eagerly waiting to take a look at it!!! For me, I am not quite so willing to claim something is bad if I don’t understand all the parameters that were used, why, or even if we are looking at the original!!
Oh my, you didn’t consider that we may have DEVOLVED???
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Again, Ron Cram says Jeff said a lot of things that Jeff didn’t say. For the record, I have no opinion on the Big Bang. It’s never sounded right to me, but I’ve never really studied it. I’ve always thought that the laws of physics as we know them would probably have to thrown by the wayside for such a thing to happen. So, I’ll accept your apology, Ron, for your unfounded assumptions about me.
John B,
the best programmers and engineers I know do not try for unique every time they do something, that is an artist at work. Not that a great engineer can’t be a great artist also. it is simply efficiency to reuse excellent ideas and subsystem/modules. Since they are all designed to operate within the same general energy/biochemical environment, there will be similarities in the completed units. I would point out that the range of organisms we have seen from the bottom of the mines seas and thru to the atmosphere is pretty large. Why replicate basic modules of the control system that are already a work of genius/art, the double helix!! Who knows, this could be the signature of our designer!!
8>)
John B:
“So why would “the desgner” make it look so much like all life evolved from one or a few common forms (as Darwin put it)?”
You asked the question, one possible non-scienitific answer (for a non-scientific question) is perhaps he wanted to confuse you. Trust me you wouldn’t be the first, and I’m not the last.
Of course science shows that bats and birds are different in many ways, even if they share some commonalitites. They operate diffrently. Why would you design a bat with feathers anyway? Seems science can at least explain that one.
anorak2, you are standing out as a great example of the kind of person I was talking about. Complaining about the wiring of the eye, that’s a good one! Time to get up to speed. Go spend some time learning about how the wiring actually works, instead of repeating nonsense anti-design talking points. And as I said, those who think it is poor, including you, do not propose any kind of better solution based on actual engineering considerations. There is zero evidence that a different wiring scheme would be better, and plenty of good engineering reason for having it the way it is.
At the end of the day, however, it is irrelevant to the question of whether it was designed. But it is another great example of the failed “poor design” argument.
Jeff Alberts,
Again, Ron Cram says Jeff said a lot of things that Jeff didn’t say. For the record, I have no opinion on the Big Bang. It’s never sounded right to me, but I’ve never really studied it. I’ve always thought that the laws of physics as we know them would probably have to thrown by the wayside for such a thing to happen. So, I’ll accept your apology, Ron, for your unfounded assumptions about me.
I apologize for offending you. It was not intentional. In the midst of a conversation about the Big Bang, I mentioned that agnostic NASA astrophysicists were forced to the conclusion the supernatural was at work. You replied “If you have to resort to the supernatural (e.g. “god”) it simply means you don’t have enough information.”
John B,
Regarding atheism, you write:
I go with [3] (or [1] if you will accept that rejecting a belief is not the same thing as holding the opposite belief).
No one has ever lived without some kind of a worldview. Some worldviews are not very well strong or do not strongly guide one’s actions. A belief in God or gods is one strong worldview (or can be). Billy Graham was strongly guided by his belief in God. Atheism, a belief that God or gods do not exist is another strong worldview (or can be). Madelyn Murray O’hair was strongly guided by her atheism. Agnostics actually have two possible outlooks: one is they simply do not know if God exists (not a strong worldview because people rarely reorder their lives based on not knowing); a second is view it is not possible to know if God exists (a strong worldview). If an agnostic holds the second position, they may feel entitled to judge both Christians and Atheists as being gullible or stupid.
Atheism is definitely a strong worldview or faith.
anorak2 says:
August 12, 2011 at 4:01 pm
I understand that perfectly well. You missed my point that the analogy is flawed. The current biochemistry on earth is not equivalent to “Shakespeare’s sonnet”.
The current biochemistry on earth is many, many times more complicated (contains more information) than a sonnet by Shakespeare. If you had read the article I linked to above about scientists “creating” artificial life, you would have read that when one letter out of a million was out of place in the artificial DNA – then it didn’t work. And we were just talking about the DNA portion. The DNA portion then had to be transplanted into a living cell with all of its constituent structures (cell membranes, cytoplasm, etc).
You misunderstand. I wasn’t offended, I just don’t appreciate having words placed in my mouth when I didn’t say them.
I still stand by my statement. The philosophical views of agnostics, whether astrophysicists or otherwise, are irrelevant to the facts.
@Ron Cram
My worldview can best be summed up as “I don’t know, and neither do you”