In a new paper published in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment, researchers at the University of Rochester were able to use magnetism to determine, for the first time, when carbonaceous chondrite asteroids—asteroids that are rich in water and amino acids—first arrived in the inner solar system. The research provides data that helps inform scientists about the early origins of…
Tag: amino acids
A NASA Mission Is About To Capture Carbon-Rich Dust From a Former Water World
sciencehabit writes: OSIRIS-REx is ready to get the goods. On 20 October, after several years of patient study of its enigmatic target, NASA’s $800 million spacecraft will finally stretch out its robotic arm, swoop to the surface of the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, and sweep up some dust and pebbles. The encounter, 334 million kilometers from Earth, will last about 10 seconds….
Which insects have the worst stings?
Some of the most painful stings come from tarantula hawk wasps, warrior wasps, and bullet ants. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/which-insects-have-worst-painful-stings…
A Tiny Space Rock Holds Clues About the Evolution of Life
Back in 2012, a team of Japanese and Belgian researchers in Antarctica found a golf ball-sized space rock resting in the snow. Now, NASA astronauts have had a chance to study a piece of that meteorite, Asuka 12236, and they say it may hold new clues about the development of life. From a report: Inside the meteorite, astrobiologists from NASA’s Goddard…
An Unusual Meteorite, More Valuable Than Gold, May Hold Life’s Building Blocks
Slashdot reader sciencehabit tells the strange story of a 4.5-billion-year-old meteor from “the cold void beyond Jupiter” that sent “blazing fireballs and rocks raining down on farms and fields.” On 23 April 2019, a space rock the size of a washing machine broke up in the skies over Aguas Zarcas, a village carved out of Costa Rica’s rainforest. The falling fragments,…
If there is life out there, can we detect it?
Instruments aboard future space missions are capable of detecting amino acids, fatty acids and peptides, and can even identify ongoing biological processes on ocean moons in our solar system. These are the exciting conclusions reached by two studies from an international team led by scientists of the Planetary Sciences research group at Freie Universität Berlin. The two studies were published in…
Ancient asteroid impacts created the ingredients of life on Earth and Mars
A new study published in Scientific Reports reveals that asteroid impact sites in the ocean may possess a crucial link in explaining the formation of the essential molecules for life. The researchers discovered the emergence of amino acids that serve as the building blocks for proteins—demonstrating the role of meteorites in bringing life’s molecules to Earth, and potentially Mars. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-06-ancient-asteroid-impacts-ingredients-life.html…
Mutant Enzyme Could Vastly Improve Recycling of Plastic Bottles
sciencehabit writes: Recycling isn’t as guilt-free as it seems. Only about 30% of the plastic that goes into soda bottles gets turned into new plastic, and it often ends up as a lower strength version. Now, researchers report they’ve engineered an enzyme that can convert 90% of that same plastic back to its pristine starting materials. Work is underway to scale…
Have the first proteins been found in meteorites?
Researchers say they’ve discovered the first complete proteins inside 2 meteorites. It’s tantalizing, since proteins play a key role in the cells of living creatures. But will the results hold up to scrutiny? Source: https://earthsky.org/space/proteins-amino-acids-meteorites-acfer-086-and-allende-origin-of-life…