Post by Ravenchamp on May 31, 2016 23:33:30 GMT -5
Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko contains ingredients for life
Bern, Switzerland (SPX) May 31, 2016
www.spacedaily.com/reports/Churyumov-Gerasimenko_comet_contains_ingredients_for_life_999.html
Ingredients crucial for the origin of life on Earth, including the simple amino acid glycine and phosphorus, key components of DNA and cell membranes, have been discovered at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The possibility that water and organic molecules were brought to the early Earth through impacts of objects like asteroids and comets have long been the subject of important debate.
While Rosetta's ROSINA instrument already showed a significant difference in composition between Comet 67P/C-G's water and that of Earth, the same instrument has now shown that even if comets did not play as big a role in delivering water as once thought, they certainly had the potential to deliver life's ingredients.
While more than 140 different molecules have already been identified in the interstellar medium, amino acids could not be traced. However, hints of the amino acid glycine, a biologically important organic compound commonly found in proteins, were found during NASA's Stardust mission that flew by Comet Wild 2 in 2004, but terrestrial contamination of the collected dust samples during the analysis could not be ruled out.
Now, for the first time, repeated detections at a comet have been confirmed by Rosetta in Comet 67P/C-G's fuzzy atmosphere, or coma.
Bern, Switzerland (SPX) May 31, 2016
www.spacedaily.com/reports/Churyumov-Gerasimenko_comet_contains_ingredients_for_life_999.html
Ingredients crucial for the origin of life on Earth, including the simple amino acid glycine and phosphorus, key components of DNA and cell membranes, have been discovered at Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. The possibility that water and organic molecules were brought to the early Earth through impacts of objects like asteroids and comets have long been the subject of important debate.
While Rosetta's ROSINA instrument already showed a significant difference in composition between Comet 67P/C-G's water and that of Earth, the same instrument has now shown that even if comets did not play as big a role in delivering water as once thought, they certainly had the potential to deliver life's ingredients.
While more than 140 different molecules have already been identified in the interstellar medium, amino acids could not be traced. However, hints of the amino acid glycine, a biologically important organic compound commonly found in proteins, were found during NASA's Stardust mission that flew by Comet Wild 2 in 2004, but terrestrial contamination of the collected dust samples during the analysis could not be ruled out.
Now, for the first time, repeated detections at a comet have been confirmed by Rosetta in Comet 67P/C-G's fuzzy atmosphere, or coma.
