Rosetta comet on the building blocks of life – The Republic

Rome – As building blocks of life are still rather elementary. But it is the first time that the organic molecules are observed on a comet with no doubt that they are the result of contamination. The substances in question are the glycine, the simplest of the twenty amino acids that make up our proteins, in particular the DNA and the RNA. And phosphorus, key ingredient of the double helix and cell membranes. Studied the comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenok climb to the headlines – despite the complicated name – because they achieved and designed by the European Space Agency probe, Rosetta, in 2014.

“We already knew that glycine could have assembled in the early stages of formation of the solar system, “explains Roberto Battiston, president of the Italian Space Agency. “We had also found traces in some meteorites and a comet dust sample brought to Earth by NASA in 2009. But we always had the doubt that the materials had been contaminated by us. This time we observed the comet’s tail without touching it, measuring the emissions of its spectrum. We are sure to have reliable data “. The results of the Rosetta analysis were published in Science Advances.

According to one of the theories about the origin of life , organic molecules would be formed in space, aboard the planets and comets, harnessing the energy of the sun and the water (which several times was found aboard meteorites). Falling to Earth, they would have “fertilized” with their elements. The journal Science recently published a University of Nice experiment in which the researchers put together in laboratory water, methanol and ammonia, cooling the whole to 200 below zero (as in ice grains of comets) and bombarding it with ultraviolet rays imitation energy of the stars. From “Space primordial soup” has identified several types of sugars, some are compatible with the building blocks of DNA. In October, more and Rosetta had found traces of oxygen in the tail of the comet.

“How likely is it that these bricks to have evolved life as we know it? On this question there is great discussion” comments Battiston. “But the discovery leads us to think that, on the timing and size of their universe, life can be quite common. Processes such as that observed by Rosetta can indeed also be occurring elsewhere. Today we know that the Earth is less special than we thought . Since the 90s we have discovered many planets orbiting a star like our own. “

Topics:

comets

rose

hex

asi

battiston

67P / Churyumov- Gerasimenko

life in space

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