SCIENTISTS LOCATE BUILDING BLOCKS OF LIFE IN SPACE

BERLIN Scientists have found evidence supporting the theory that some of the building blocks for life may have come to Earth from outer space. Using the space probe Rosetta, researchers detected glycine, an amino acid and one of the molecules needed to make proteins, and phosphorus, essential for DNA and cells, in the dusty halo around a comet.

“The beauty of it is that the material in the comet was formed before the Sun and planets formed, in the cold environment of the star-forming region (known as the) molecular cloud,” said Kathrin Altwegg, a physicist at the University of Bern, Switzerland, who led the study.

“That means what has happened a long time ago in the cloud from which our solar system emerged could happen in all clouds.”