Latest Murchison meteorite Stories
NASA The hunt for the organic molecules that create proteins and enzymes critical for life here on Earth has largely happened in sophisticated terrestrial laboratories equipped with high-tech gadgetry needed to tease out their presence in space rocks and other extraterrestrial samples. A technologist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., now wants to take that search to the sources themselves. Stephanie Getty, who recently was selected as Goddard’s Innovator of...
WASHINGTON, Aug. 8, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA-funded researchers have found more evidence meteorites can carry DNA components created in space. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO ) Scientists have detected the building blocks of DNA in meteorites since the 1960s, but were unsure whether they were created in space or resulted from contamination by terrestrial life. The latest research indicates certain nucleobases -- the building blocks of our genetic...
According to new NASA research, a wider range of asteroids were capable of creating the kind of amino acids used by life on Earth. Researchers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center reported in 2009 that they discovered an excess of the left-handed form of the amino acid isovaline in samples of meteorites that came from carbon-rich asteroids. NASA said that this discovery suggests that left-handed life got its start in space, where conditions in asteroids favored the creation of...
Experts said a meteorite that crashed into Earth 40 years ago contains millions of different carbon-containing, or organic, molecules, BBC News reported.Scientists say that such organic compounds are life's building blocks, and are a sign of conditions in the early Solar System, yet they are not necessarily a sign of life.The Murchison meteorite could even be older than the Sun, according to the research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.Philippe...
The interstellar stuff that became incorporated into the planets and life on Earth has younger cosmic roots than theories predict, according to the University of Chicago postdoctoral scholar Philipp Heck and his international team of colleagues.Heck and his colleagues examined 22 interstellar grains from the Murchison meteorite for their analysis. Dying sun-like stars flung the Murchison grains into space more than 4.5 billion years ago, before the birth of the solar system. Scientists know...
Scientists have reported the discovery of formic acid at record levels in a meteorite that splashed into Tagish Lake in Canada in 2000.Formic acid is the simplest carboxylic acid. It is rich in carbon, and it has been linked to the origin of life. It is commonly found on Earth in the venom of bee and ant stings.Scientists reported that the meteorite revealed four times more formic acid than previously recorded in other meteorite samples.Researchers told BBC News that the cold temperatures of...
GREENBELT, Md., March 17 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA scientists analyzing the dust of meteorites have discovered new clues to a long-standing mystery about how life works on its most basic, molecular level. (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) "We found more support for the idea that biological molecules, like amino acids, created in space and brought to Earth by meteorite impacts help explain why life is left-handed," said Dr. Daniel Glavin of NASA's Goddard...
NASA scientists analyzing the dust of meteorites have discovered new clues to a long-standing mystery about how life works on its most basic, molecular level."We found more support for the idea that biological molecules, like amino acids, created in space and brought to Earth by meteorite impacts help explain why life is left-handed," said Dr. Daniel Glavin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "By that I mean why all known life uses only left-handed versions...
London's Natural History Museum has purchased a rare type of meteorite that could hold clues to the birth of our Solar System.The meteorite was obtained from a private collection. The Ivuna meteorite has the same chemical make-up from which the Solar System formed 4.5 billion years ago.The meteorite landed in Tanzania as one 705g stone in 1938 and has since been split into two samples.Parts of the UK sample will be removed for study. Most Ivuna samples are held in private collections, or by...
A British-led study has confirmed for the first time that an important component of early genetic material is extraterrestrial in origin. The scientists from Imperial College London say an important component of early genetic material found in meteorite fragments suggests parts of the raw materials to make the first molecules of DNA and RNA might have come from the stars. The scientists, from Europe and the United States, said the materials they found include the molecules uracil and...
