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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DesertYote says:
August 10, 2011 at 9:16 am
Thanks to moonbats like Carl Sagan, you and everyone else misses the point of the Drakes Equation. Its purpose was NOT to show that ET probably exists, but to point out the futility in calculating the probability of his existence. It also demonstrate, by the multiplication of a string of very tiny numbers, that the chance of ETs existence is pretty damn small, < 10^-20.
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Where do you get 10 to the -20 from? The whole problem with the Drake equation is that it contains terms – the fraction of planets that develop life, the fraction of those that evolve intelligent life, the fraction of those that develop technology, the average life expectancy of such technological civilizations – whose values are completely unknown and may range from probable to vanishingly small. Your assertion is no better than a wild guess.
Lady Life Grows says:
August 10, 2011 at 11:56 am
Living things do not reach equilibrium and continue to be alive. You reach (static) equilibrium when you achieve room temperature. I don’t want to do that for many, many years. We only appear to have static form, but that appearance is dynamic equilibrium produced by a balance of inputs and outputs. The process maintaining our form and function is energy consuming. And entropy beats us all in the end.
There are social and political forces that mistake dynamic equilibrium for static states. Living systems, like civilizations, are changing constantly and can’t be made to stay the same and expect to survive for long. This basic misunderstanding of static state versus balanced process creates deep divisions within our society.
Policy makers these days don’t seem to understand the concept of dynamic living systems, and voters certainly don’t get it. That makes doing the right thing difficult sometimes. Voters may have to learn hard lessons. The system may have to crash and reboot. It would be better if little crashes occurred so the lessons could be learned on smaller scales.
Those who believe in absolute Truth can always attack science. In natural philosophy, there is no such thing as Truth, only approximations. Every theory has error. But so what? These approximations of truth can be very useful. We don’t have to prove our theories or models of reality are absolutely correct; that is never possible. If they are not proven to be completely wrong, we can only show they are useful. That is, they explain observations and are useful in making predictions. And we should expect better ideas to come along in time. Science is also not static.
Not necessarily, it’s true the Big Bang provides evidence of a “Big Banger” but why the need to assume anything else was left to be “worked on” after Big Bang?
There are two paths you can take post Big Bang to explain the existence of our universe. One is to accept the idea that all of physics was created and perfect as of that very instant. The other is that the physics was not quite perfect and required some tweaking here and there along the way in order for everything to turn out as it did. With that latter path it becomes easy to say all kinds of things were adjusted, added, subtracted, etc along the way and there’s really no reason to not think such modification is going on at this very moment. It also implies that we are some sort of ‘afterthought’.
So I believe the former path is true. I think the Big Banger is not restricted by time at all so the outcome ‘was’ known ‘before’ it ‘happened’ – and the Big Banger saw that it ‘was’ good. I also recognize that I cannot possibly imagine the degree of precision required for the exact values of such things as say the constants for gravity or the other three known forces needed at time zero for a continued successful universe outcome umpteen billions of years later. So I take that on faith and also conclude that I also cannot discount the possibility that the eventual outcome of life via evolution was also perfectly foreseen at time zero along with everything else thus requiring no further intervention at all. In other words, if the Big Banger had no problem getting gravity right to 10^n! decimal places then maybe creating a universe that included the emergence of life was relatively simple?
But it’s only my guess…
I am totally nuetral on evolution and the “where life came from” question. Whether or not life took place in a second or over over billions of years, I still find the beauty of the universe a miracle. I accept that the theory of evolution makes sense and is more than just a little bit probable.
Having said that, can any one answer this question? How complex is the DNA of the simpliest forms of life, other than viruses, now in existance and do scientists know the complexity of the DNA in the earliest known forms of life?
Previous commenters asked what the “handedness” or Chirality of the amino acids were. I also ask that question.
While it has been known that amino acids could be created in nature or experimentally there have not been any created that had the correct one handed chirality that life on earth requires without using biological materials WITH the correct Chirality. (life creates life)
This article did not make clear whether the chirality issue has been overcome. I would think if it had it would be a BIG DEAL and would be trumpeted around!!
Does anyone know if this has been answered?
“Let There Be Light!”
(Some of the Angels in the back of the infinite throng thought He said ‘Life’, and seeds of life were strewn about in random fashion. The rest is history.)
PS: If you think I’m being disrespectful, you’re wrong.
“. . . some building blocks . . . were likely created in space . . .”
Uh, yeah. So were the other building blocks: carbon, iron, magnesium, etc. They all came from space, and at some point they all had to be on earth before life started (setting aside panspermia for the moment).
“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.”
Hmmm. Now just exactly how do a bunch of nucleotides landing on the earth in comets “assist the origin of life”?
Science is merely the frontier of the end of your knowledge. Let me explain: If Anthony comes into the 1st degree burn unit and heals everyone…….everytime….through prayer. (He did heal us of the case of AGW). That is now the frontier of Science. Even if it’s a religious transaction. Because it’s real. And real requires Science to explain it. What I feel we are all saying is this: The Question should be tabled so that serious discussions by the brain trust in the scientific community together with the resources available for inquiry can be made. It’s not good enough for an emminent biologist to say “it’s as if the Peacock is an expert on light phase quantum offset” and leave it at that. Following the trail further where that is leading should be Science.
Eric Anderson says:
August 10, 2011 at 2:36 pm
“Uh, yeah. So were the other building blocks: carbon, iron, magnesium, etc. They all came from space, and at some point they all had to be on earth before life started (setting aside panspermia for the moment).”
If you are taking apart an asteroid, in the careful way that scientists do, and you find something that has exactly the appearance of a ball bearing, can you infer that the Model T came from space?
One source of discussions of Science you might like is KITP. (Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics) which records and makes available lectures on a variety of subjects in podcast type fashion.
This was well presented and very interesting. http://online.kitp.ucsb.edu/online/plecture/bbassler11/rm/qttv.html
Tucci78 says:
August 10, 2011 at 12:38 pm
I think it’s appropriate to ring in an article prepared for a lay audience in December 2007 by retired rocket scientist (and emphatic AGW skeptic) Dr. Jeff Glassman, titled “Conjecture, Hypothesis, Theory, Law: The Basis of Rational Argument,” in which he addressed both the AGW fraud and the “intelligent design” …
——————-
I have seen before this attempt to draw parallels between AGW and creationism, and thus paint AGW as anti-science. However, just scanning this thread one can see that it is among the so-called “skeptics” that creationist ideas are common, if not overwhelming. You won’t find many practising scientists (climate or otherwise) supporting creationist views. And this brings to mind another paradox: skeptics often accuse AGW proponents of “GAIA worship”, yet it is the skeptics who talk about self-regulation and magical mechanisms like “the recovery from the Little Ice Age”. Hmmm…
Tucci78 says:
August 10, 2011 at 1:57 pm
Tucci,
Yes, please call me Theo.
“…Dr. Dawkins responded to Mr. Stein’s request for “any circumstances under which intelligent design might have occurred,” and Dr. Dawkins mentioned the widely-known conjecture of directed panspermia, an idea – definitely not Dr. Dawkins’ own, and not one he has ever endorsed to the best of my appreciation – that’s been knocking around for more than three decades.”
I did not intend to criticize your criticisms of the movie/documentary. My point is a logical point about Dawkins’ position. If you buy his position on DNA then you have bought the position that DNA is independent of biological life as we know it on Earth. That is, Dawkins’ fundamental position, however theoretical, implies that aliens, Intergalactic UPS, or whatever could have delivered DNA to Earth. Now, his next tasks (2) are to explain how the first living thing came about and (2) how the first living thing and DNA got together.
My criticism of Dawkins is that he is the most out-of-control Platonist since Plato. If you read Plato’s basic works, you learn that he had an incredible tendency to reify abstractions. For example, Plato argued that Heaven is real and causes events in human experience. In particular, he argued that learning is recollection of Heaven. That position implies that you learn because you have been in Heaven and have directly experienced what you are now recalling at the hand of the good teacher, Plato. Well, what is Heaven but where the aliens live?
Dawkins reifies DNA in the same way that Plato reified ideas and the World of Forms (ideas). Aristotle refused to do this and took the individual living thing as the fundamental posit of his biology (Plato had none) and his metaphysics. I do not find Platonism congenial.
kuhnkat says:
August 10, 2011 at 2:24 pm
Previous commenters asked what the “handedness” or Chirality of the amino acids were. I also ask that question.
While it has been known that amino acids could be created in nature or experimentally there have not been any created that had the correct one handed chirality that life on earth requires without using biological materials WITH the correct Chirality. (life creates life)
This article did not make clear whether the chirality issue has been overcome. I would think if it had it would be a BIG DEAL and would be trumpeted around!!
Does anyone know if this has been answered?
———————–
The nucleobases (not amino acids in this case, the title is wrong) are almost certainly racemic, i.e. not one single chirality but an equal mix. Chemical processes create racemic mixes. Life favours one chirality over the other (homochirality) because biological processes, such as the action of enzymes, are driven by molecular shape as well as chemistry. Thus, once life gets going, one chirality is favoured. The only debate is whether the “choice” of chirality was random or if one particular chirality is favoured because of, perhaps, the action of circular polarized light in the early universe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homochirality
I take it that NONE of those species of Amino Acids, that appear in Meteorites, EVER has appeared in any of those laboratory experiments, in which electrical discharges take place in flasks containing some synthetic primordial soup concoction.
If they could be simply made in the lab thusly, it wouldn’t be of much significance, that they can be found in space materials.
“”””” Mike M says:
August 10, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Ron Cram said: “The Big Bang provides strong evidence a Big Banger is at work. “
Not necessarily, it’s true the Big Bang provides evidence of a “Big Banger” but why the need to assume anything else was left to be “worked on” after Big Bang? “””””
Well “The Big Bang” is simply a possible model that appears to explain certain Astronomical observations. The “evidence” supporting such a model supports nothing additional; especially some “big banger”, which is every bit as conjectural as is “The Big Bang.”
polistra says:
August 10, 2011 at 1:57 am
More likely, life arose on lots of planets.
That proposition does not make sense. We know exactly nothing about the likelihood of abiogenesis. From the existence of terrestrial life alone it can not be inferred. We only know the conditional probability of the event our first progenitor somehow emerged in an inanimate environment, provided we are wondering right now. Its value is one (1).
The proof is rather easy. First a bit of notation. Let proposition C
be “our first progenitor somehow emerged in an inanimate environment” and proposition A be “we are wondering right now”. Probability of the full conditional proposition above can be written as P(C|A). Now, P(C|A) = P(C·A)/P(A), and since A implies C, it follows that C·A = A. QED.
As you can see, P(C) (likelihood of abiogenesis) does not even enter the equations. The weak anthropic principle is just like that, it is weak.
The other way to assign a likelihood to abiogenesis would be through a detailed model of the process. Unfortunately we do not have such a model so far, just some pseudo scientific hand-waving.
“”””” Vince Causey says:
August 10, 2011 at 1:59 pm
DesertYote says:
August 10, 2011 at 9:16 am
Thanks to moonbats like Carl Sagan, you and everyone else misses the point of the Drakes Equation. Its purpose was NOT to show that ET probably exists, but to point out the futility in calculating the probability of his existence. It also demonstrate, by the multiplication of a string of very tiny numbers, that the chance of ETs existence is pretty damn small, < 10^-20.
==========================================
Where do you get 10 to the -20 from? The whole problem with the Drake equation is that it contains terms – the fraction of planets that develop life, the fraction of those that evolve intelligent life, the fraction of those that develop technology, the average life expectancy of such technological civilizations – whose values are completely unknown and may range from probable to vanishingly small. Your assertion is no better than a wild guess. """""
Well the problem with Drake's Equation, is that it is missing a whole raft of important factors; namely the product of ALL of the improbabilities of each of the necessary sequentially occurring chemical syntheses that are necessary to get from some mixture of say, H2, O2, N2, H2O, CO2 plus some energy source to ALL of the building blocks of life.
It is known for example, that some of the isomers of intermediate organic molecules, whose synthesis is energetically favored, lead eventually to dead ends; while other isomers that can lead to known components of living organisms, are energetically unfavored in common synthesis processes..
The necessary sequence of syntheses required to get to DNA, is every bit as unlikely as is the near infinity of earthlike planets, with suitable atmospheres for earthlike life, suitably disposed about suitable stars.
So what does zero times infinity get you ?
At 3:05 PM on 10 August, John B gripes about Dr. Glassman’s comparison of the preposterous AGW bogosity to the religious whackjob nonsense of creationism, complaining:
And you’re going to see it a boatload more times, John, because it’s precisely apt.
Inasmuch as the “Cargo Cult Science” of the hideous, duplicitous, incompetent, wasteful, invidious, criminally thieving AGW fraud has been, from its inception, an elaborate deception wholly devoid of genuine conformity with scientific method, just what the hell do you expect?
Personally, I’m hoping for both criminal prosecutions and tort lawsuits out the kazoo, the latter seeking compensatory and punitive damages enumerated with way more zeroes than the more than 79 billion bucks ripped off by the AGW charlatans in these United States from 1989 through 2009.
John B says:
August 10, 2011 at 3:05 pm
“I have seen before this attempt to draw parallels between AGW and creationism, and thus paint AGW as anti-science. However, just scanning this thread one can see that it is among the so-called “skeptics” that creationist ideas are common, if not overwhelming.”
Well, what a sweet little bigot you are. You just are not going to miss an opportunity to bash people for talking about religion, are you? You are going to use every tool in your bigoted little arsenal to stop talk of religion, aren’t you? What would you do if you had all the power you need? Would you outlaw religious expression? Would you press criminal charges against the religious? If you are not a hardcore Marxist, if you do not believe in Mao’s New Socialist Man, then you are really missing a bet. Their views on religion are remarkably similar to yours.
The real problem with the Drake equation is that it is pseudo science. It simply can’t be tested. Writing down some variables with an equals(=) between them means nothing when the only way to evaluate the expression is by guessing some numbers for them. Since we have only one example of a planet with intelligent : ) ? life on it that makes the whole rest of the equation meaningless. With only one example there simply is no way to intelligently establish a probability greater than 10^(- # of stars in the universe during the last 14 billion years), or something close to 1 less than 10^-infinity.
The Drake equation bears a strong resemblance to the kind of thinking that has gone into establishing AGW theory.
The whole point of believing in God is that God exists outside the universe. The Big Bang theory is one way of concieving how the Universe started. But any theory in this universe can’t prove anything about what exists or doesn’t exist outside the universe(one of Goedal’s theorems). Every system of thought can generate questions or theorems(speaking mathematically) that cannot be proven within the system. In other words, God is not something we can prove, but only can believe.
First line of the US President’s inaugural address, January 2013:
“My fellow Cosmic-Americans…”
Rabid environmentalists trying to prove we are an invasive species so they have an excuse to eradicate us!
Hate to introduce the “duh” factor. But…since the earth is in space. And space was around for 14 billion years before the Earth formed.
The seeds of life on Earth had to have originated in space.
Duh.
So we’ve once again wandered into the creation argument.
“You refuse to accept that the creation of the whole universe was part of God’s plan for us to be born.”
It’s a common belief, but it strikes me as really cocky, self centered and humanistic.
Surely in an infinite universe there are life forms far more advanced than ourselves.
Can’t we simply be creatures blessed with the gift of observing and enjoying the wonder of it all?
And why speculate as to the meaning of the gift, the motive or the identity of the giver? Perhaps the giver of the gift prefers to remain anonymous.
Why not just explore it and enjoy it to the fullest as you would any gift?