Meteorite clue to origin of life

IT’S probably one of the first questions the earliest humans asked – just how on Earth did we get here?

Now we may be a step closer to the answer – after the building blocks of life were found in meteorites.

Some experts believe life began deep under the ocean, while others think it came from space rocks. The big question mark over the meteorite theory was that only two of the four primary building blocks of DNA had been found in them.

But analysis of three meteorites has found the missing two components.

And if life here did begin in this way, it raises the prospect of it having been transported to other planets too.

The researchers from Hokkaido and Kyushu universities in Japan believe the DNA building blocks were first deposited on Earth around four billion years ago.

Professor Mark Sephton, an astrobiologist from Imperial College, said: ‘This is one of the final ingredients on the list that we need to show we were made in space.’