A meteorite in Australia has been found to contain component molecules of DNA

Murchison research
Murchison Research Argonne National Laboratory

Although it's only one part of the answer, we have come another step closer to solving the question of how life originated. Two necessary molecular ingredients of DNA and RNA have been confirmed to have originated from outer space. They join the handful of amino acids we have discovered to have been delivered to Earth on the backs of asteroids and comets. Publishing in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, the team of research scientists from the US and Europe have demonstrated that uracil and xanthine are present in fragments of the Murchison meteorite and are not terrestrial in origin. Studies of the Murchison meteorite, which crashed in Australia in 1969, are routinely criticized over concerns of Earthly contamination.

Using an exceptionally laborious combination of gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, the scientists have shown that the molecules contain a heavy form of carbon—carbon 13—which is consistent with having formed in space. Organic compounds on Earth contain a lighter carbon variant. While no one has established the connection between the development of life on Earth and the molecules' presence on meteorites, the discovery does shed light on the possibility of life elsewhere in the galaxy. If the basic ingredients are zipping around throughout the cosmos, the likelihood of life taking shape wherever the chemistry is right is most certainly increased.

[Via PhysOrg.com]

8 Comments

I know they are only precursors, but shouldn't we be more excited about this? Is it not a sign there is, or at least was other life out there?
Also, wouldn't it mean we are different carbon based life forms that those which may have existed at the meteorite source?

Pernicious:

Similar molecules can be created by electrical catalysis or other ways. These are the VERY simple building blocks of DNA. Not that this isn't a huge deal, but it's not evidence of ET life. Although, as they say, it's encouraging that these things are flying around.

Also, we can't be surprised to find these same components on Mars now. If we find them there, we know where they likely came from.

Why aren't we more excited? Um, well, what has changed? Most people only get excited about things when it changes their actual lives. It's like how so many people got all worked up over the idea that Jesus got married and had children. What does it matter? It doesn't change anything about my life.
So there's alien life out there somewhere. Ok, so what? It doesn't change a thing.
Now, if you could actually DO something or MAKE something with that alien DNA, or use it to track down some ETs and make contact, or SOMETHING. That would be exciting. Microscopic DNA on a rock? Not so much.

Why are we being pumped with so much news about this "life came from outer space" implications? Are we truly interested in finding the truth? Do these news ever solve anything? I don't think so. Today with so many scientists in the hands of secret societies and corporations i think we will only see what they want us to see. And that is not truth.

ron hansing

once we have the dna, we can hybridize it to common dna sources on earth... if it combines... add one more piece of info.... to the life question.

the other thought... is that this is contamination.

All helical frequencys will begin to understand a mass of spectrum, because of a repeditive exposure to the environment. Great News, I wonder if that meteorite was from the same blast that took out all live on the planet in the oxygenated layer of the planet? Then it would go into space, go into an orbit of somekind, return, enter our system, and still withhold bacteria of the past? What is past?!

The Light of the past continues into the black abyss, if we chase it we may see what is not timesync to reality and will be a precievable past, however if all light bends around, and all elements gather in spherical form then seeing the image of the past may actually meet up with us will venturing away, and we may actually set food and take a transfer from one spectrum of mass to another, understanding dimension.,

while venturing * Set Foot**

O.o

Scientist do not report the truth or lies. They don't know the difference. Like the rest of us they report what they observe and believe based on their assumptions.
I personally think it's overwhelming obvious by now that there is more than likely that "life" is widespread throughout the galaxy and beyond in one form or another.
I would be stunned if this was not the case.



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