NASA "artist's concept"Acetylene(C2H2) and hydrogen cyanide are two of the most basic, organic carbon molecules, slightly more complicated than methane and carbon dioxide.
Posted on 12/31/2005 1:32:58 AM PST by neverdem
Partial Ingredients For DNA And Protein Found Around Star NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered some of life's most basic ingredients in the dust swirling around a young star. The ingredients - gaseous precursors to DNA and protein - were detected in the star's terrestrial planet zone, a region where rocky planets such as Earth are thought to be born.
The findings represent the first time that these gases, called acetylene and hydrogen cyanide, have been found in a terrestrial planet zone outside of our own.
"This infant system might look a lot like ours did billions of years ago, before life arose on Earth," said Fred Lahuis of Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands and the Dutch space research institute called SRON. Lahuis is lead author of a paper to be published in the Jan. 10 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Lahuis and his colleagues spotted the organic, or carbon-containing, gases around a star called IRS 46. The star is in the Ophiuchus (pronounced OFF-ee-YOO-kuss), or "snake carrier," constellation about 375 light-years from Earth. This constellation harbors a huge cloud of gas and dust in the process of a major stellar baby boom. Like most of the young stars here and elsewhere, IRS 46 is circled by a flat disk of spinning gas and dust that might ultimately clump together to form planets.
When the astronomers probed this star's disk with Spitzer's powerful infrared spectrometer instrument, they were surprised to find the molecular "barcodes" of large amounts of acetylene and hydrogen cyanide gases, as well as carbon dioxide gas. The team observed 100 similar young stars, but only one, IRS 46, showed unambiguous signs of the organic mix.
"The star's disk was oriented in just the right way to allow us to peer into it," said Lahuis.
The Spitzer data also revealed that the organic gases are hot. So hot, in fact, that they are most likely located near the star, about the same distance away as Earth is from our sun.
"The gases are very warm, close to or somewhat above the boiling point of water on Earth," said Dr. Adwin Boogert of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "These high temperatures helped to pinpoint the location of the gases in the disk."
Organic gases such as those found around IRS 46 are found in our own solar system, in the atmospheres of the giant planets and Saturn's moon Titan, and on the icy surfaces of comets. They have also been seen around massive stars by the European Space Agency's Infrared Space Observatory, though these stars are thought to be less likely than sun-like stars to form life-bearing planets.
Here on Earth, the molecules are believed to have arrived billions of years ago, possibly via comets or comet dust that rained down from the sky. Acetylene and hydrogen cyanide link up together in the presence of water to form some of the chemical units of life's most essential compounds, DNA and protein. These chemical units are several of the 20 amino acids that make up protein and one of the four chemical bases that make up DNA.
"If you add hydrogen cyanide, acetylene and water together in a test tube and give them an appropriate surface on which to be concentrated and react, you'll get a slew of organic compounds including amino acids and a DNA purine base called adenine," said Dr. Geoffrey Blake of Caltech, a co-author of the paper. "And now, we can detect these same molecules in the planet zone of a star hundreds of light-years away."
Follow-up observations with the W.M. Keck Telescope atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii confirmed the Spitzer findings and suggested the presence of a wind emerging from the inner region of IRS 46's disk. This wind will blow away debris in the disk, clearing the way for the possible formation of Earth-like planets.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech. JPL is a division of Caltech. Spitzer's infrared spectrograph was built by Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. Its development was led by Dr. Jim Houck of Cornell.
For graphics and more information about Spitzer, visit http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzer . For more information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit http://www.nasa.gov/home/ .
Editor's Note: The original news release can be found here.
This story has been adapted from a news release issued by National Aeronautics And Space Administration.
NASA "artist's concept"Acetylene(C2H2) and hydrogen cyanide are two of the most basic, organic carbon molecules, slightly more complicated than methane and carbon dioxide.
Ever hear of a WAG?
I suspect this will be about a credible as the South Korean cloning experiments. Nonetheless, there will be evolutionists who will jump all over this and claim that this is proof of evolution.
Spectroscopy.
Cyanide is a deadly poison gas, but somehow the Darwinists think this is evidence of "life."
ping
Holy Moly! God's backyard barbeque....cooking up a little life. Amazing.
The article explained how these gases are precursors to DNA:
Acetylene and hydrogen cyanide link up together in the presence of water to form some of the chemical units of life's most essential compounds, DNA and protein. These chemical units are several of the 20 amino acids that make up protein and one of the four chemical bases that make up DNA.
I agree, and I think God is a lot more powerful than most people give Him credit for...
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If you squint just right...
When the astronomers probed this star's disk with Spitzer's powerful infrared spectrometer instrument, they were surprised to find the molecular "barcodes" of large amounts of acetylene and hydrogen cyanide gases, as well as carbon dioxide gas. The team observed 100 similar young stars, but only one, IRS 46, showed unambiguous signs of the organic mix.It's confusing, at least to me. The first paragraph gives the impression that this star is the only one out of 100 which exhibited such gases. But then the next paragraph hints that this was the only star that they could really get a good look at. So what is it? Are these gases found in only 1% of young stars, or in all of them that we can observe?"The star's disk was oriented in just the right way to allow us to peer into it," said Lahuis.
Is this an actual experiment I can do? Then what do I do with it? What's the next step? At what point do I get to scream, "It's alive!!!!!!!"
Nevermind. I already know this experiment cannot be done because supposedly it takes billions of years and billions of chance occurances. And that 1000 monkeys typed a 1000 years and that's how Romeo and Juliet was really written.
No thank you.
If a person was to say "I suspect this will be about a credible as the South Korean cloning experiments." everytime they read any sciecne article from now on, what do you suspect their % accuracy rate would be?
I thought this was gonna be another Clintoon thread.
I was making a specific reference to only this particular article. I made no generalized statements about other 'science articles'. on that basis, your comment makes absolutely no sense and implies that I am taking a position that cannot be supported by what I actually said.
Your statement is typical of so many evolutionists. You read so much into so little, yet claim your beliefs are supported by the facts when the evidence simply isn't there.
I never said you did. I was pointing out that someone who did use that argument would tend to be wrong. Hence you are more likely to be wrong than right in this specific case.
But don't let that little fact get in your way.
L
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