Life on Earth came from a comet? By the probe Rosetta new clues – International Business Times Italy

The life, or at least some of its ingredients, travels the cosmos aboard a comet . The spacecraft Rosetta European Space Agency (ESA) is in fact able to detect some of these “building blocks” of life as we know it on the comet 67P / Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Of these ingredients belong to glycine, an amino acid normally present in proteins, and phosphorus, which is an essential component of DNA and cell membranes. It is a discovery that could have a huge impact in the history of the planet Earth is in fact a long time discussing the possibility that water and organic molecules have been brought on a young Earth from asteroids and comets , providing an essential contribution to the development of life.

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particularly interesting is the presence of glycine, the simplest amino acid, of the organic molecules that contain carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitrogen , in addition to forming the bases of the proteins. traces of glycine were found in 2006 among the samples reported in 2006 by the Wild-2 comet thanks to NASA’s Stardust spacecraft.

However, on that occasion there was the fear of a possible terrestrial contamination of the samples, which made the very difficult analysis. But this time is different: Rosetta was able to detect repeatedly and clearly glycine in the coma of Comet 67P, which reached in August 2014, a few months after releasing the Philae lander on the surface.

“ This is the first unambiguous detection of glycine in a comet “, explains Kathrin Altwegg, Head of the ROSINA instrument nacelle which allowed to perform the measurements and the first author of a paper on the findings, Advances in Science. “At the same time, we also found other organic molecules that could be precursors of the glycine, suggesting possible ways in which this may have formed.”

The comet Rosetta contains some of the basic ingredients of life Spacecraft: ESA / ATG medialab; Comet: ESA / Rosetta / NavCam – CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO; date: Altwegg et al. (2016)

As mentioned, the surveys carried out by Rosetta however, are not limited to glycine: as explained in the paper, the ESA spacecraft has succeeded with “smell” of phosphorus traces , a key element in all living organisms.

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for example, phosphorus and its compounds are found in DNA and cell membranes , as well as being used for the transport of energy within the cells. “There is still much uncertainty about the chemistry in the Earth first formed, and of course there is a huge evolutionary gap to be filled between the arrival of these ingredients because of the impacts of comets and the life that states,” explains co- author Hervé Cottin.

“But the important point is that comets are not really changed in 4.5 billion years: we provide direct access to some of the ingredients that you probably have ended up in the prebiotic soup at the end resulted in the origin of life on Earth

. “