Posted on 11/21/2019 8:04:15 AM PST by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
An international team has found sugars essential to life in meteorites. The new discovery adds to the growing list of biologically important compounds that have been found in meteorites, supporting the hypothesis that chemical reactions in asteroids – the parent bodies of many meteorites – can make some of life’s ingredients. If correct, meteorite bombardment on ancient Earth may have assisted the origin of life with a supply of life’s building blocks. Image of asteroid Bennu This is a mosaic image of asteroid Bennu, from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. The discovery of sugars in meteorites supports the hypothesis that chemical reactions in asteroids – the parent bodies of many meteorites – can make some of life’s ingredients. Credits: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona Full caption
The team discovered ribose and other bio-essential sugars including arabinose and xylose in two different meteorites that are rich in carbon, NWA 801 (type CR2) and Murchison (type CM2). Ribose is a crucial component of RNA (ribonucleic acid). In much of modern life, RNA serves as a messenger molecule, copying genetic instructions from the DNA molecule (deoxyribonucleic acid) and delivering them to molecular factories within the cell called ribosomes that read the RNA to build specific proteins needed to carry out life processes.
“Other important building blocks of life have been found in meteorites previously, including amino acids (components of proteins) and nucleobases (components of DNA and RNA), but sugars have been a missing piece among the major building blocks of life,” said Yoshihiro Furukawa of Tohoku University, Japan, lead author of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences November 18. “The research provides the first direct evidence of ribose in space and the delivery of the sugar to Earth. The extraterrestrial sugar might have contributed to the formation of RNA on the prebiotic Earth which possibly led to the origin of life.” Artist's concept of meteors impacting ancient Earth Artist’s concept of meteors impacting ancient Earth. Some scientists think such impacts may have delivered water and other molecules useful to emerging life on Earth. Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
“It is remarkable that a molecule as fragile as ribose could be detected in such ancient material,” said Jason Dworkin, a co-author of the study at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “These results will help guide our analyses of pristine samples from primitive asteroids Ryugu and Bennu, to be returned by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Hayabusa2 and NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft.” model of ribose molecule with meteorite This is a model of the molecular structure of ribose and an image of the Murchison meteorite. Ribose and other sugars were found in this meteorite. Credits: Yoshihiro Furukawa
An enduring mystery regarding the origin of life is how biology could have arisen from non-biological chemical processes. DNA is the template for life, carrying the instructions for how to build and operate a living organism. However, RNA also carries information, and many researchers think it evolved first and was later replaced by DNA. This is because RNA molecules have capabilities that DNA lacks. RNA can make copies of itself without “help” from other molecules, and it can also initiate or speed up chemical reactions as a catalyst. The new work gives some evidence to support the possibility that RNA coordinated the machinery of life before DNA.
“The sugar in DNA (2-deoxyribose) was not detected in any of the meteorites analyzed in this study,” said Danny Glavin, a co-author of the study at NASA Goddard. “This is important since there could have been a delivery bias of extraterrestrial ribose to the early Earth which is consistent with the hypothesis that RNA evolved first.”
The team discovered the sugars by analyzing powdered samples of the meteorites using gas chromatography mass spectrometry, which sorts and identifies molecules by their mass and electric charge. They found that the abundances of ribose and the other sugars ranged from 2.3 to 11 parts per billion in NWA 801 and from 6.7 to 180 parts per billion in Murchison.
Since Earth is awash with life, the team had to consider the possibility that the sugars in the meteorites simply came from contamination by terrestrial life. Multiple lines of evidence indicate contamination is unlikely, including isotope analysis. Isotopes are versions of an element with different mass due to the number of neutrons in the atomic nucleus. For example, life on Earth prefers to use the lighter variety of carbon (12C) over the heavier version (13C). However, the carbon in the meteorite sugars was significantly enriched in the heavy 13C, beyond the amount seen in terrestrial biology, supporting the conclusion that it came from space.
The team plans to analyze more meteorites to get a better idea of the abundance of the extraterrestrial sugars. They also plan to see if the extraterrestrial sugar molecules have a left-handed or right-handed bias. Some molecules come in two varieties that are mirror images of each other, like your hands. On Earth, life uses left-handed amino acids and right-handed sugars. Since it’s possible that the opposite would work fine – right-handed amino acids and left-handed sugars – scientists want to know where this preference came from. If some process in asteroids favors the production of one variety over the other, then maybe the supply from space via meteorite impacts made that variety more abundant on ancient Earth, which made it more likely that life would end up using it.
The research was funded by a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI (science grant), the National Institutes of Natural Sciences Astrobiology Center, Japan, the Institute of Low Temperature Science, Hokkaido University, the Simons Foundation, and the NASA Astrobiology Institute, Goddard Center for Astrobiology. Jason Dworkin and Danny Glavin are members of the Goddard Center for Astrobiology team.
I enjoy a little Coffee with my Cream and Sugar.
Helps me launch some Meteorites in the morning.
“Wonder what the mathematical probabilities of that are?”
Well, since we’re here, I’d say 100% probability.
Flawed logic. You can only arrive at that conclusion if you have already decided there is only one possible explanation for the origin of life.
Assuming, of course, that we are here thanks to sugar- coated meteorites
‘Math one of your strong suits?’
so glad to see you don’t wish to insult one’s intelligence...
‘life, with its right-from-the start ability to survive, subsist and reproduce is a bit of a stretch, don’t ya think?’
of course it’s a stretch, as is any supposition regarding the origin of viability, including the notion that 4,000 or so invisible, unknowable entities poofed it into existence, as has been posited throughout history...
‘So the Dinosaurs drowned?’
sadly, the reality must be so, as did all the other offensive beings; animals aside from the lucky pairs, and all the people from other relgions, all the children, and the population of pregnant females that must have existed, and their unborn babies in toto...
[kicking myself]
Allrighty then.
Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate,
3
and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.
4
Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made.”
5
And Noah did all that the LORD commanded him.
So not a single dinosaur survived? Did they die on the Ark? Did they die afterwards? How big again was the ark? How big are brontosaurs? Oh dang, there would have had to be at least 2 argentinosaurs too. Dang it... there are more. giganotosaurs, titanosaurs, brachiosours, sauroposidesaurs, seismosaurs, dreadnaughtisaurs and there were more. How did they fit even assuming they were unclean? Must have been terribly terribly terribly tight.
Awaiting your explanation with bated breath.
And the LORD said to Noah, Come you and all your house into the ark; for you have I seen righteous before me in this generation. 2Of every clean beast you shall take to you by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female. 3Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive on the face of all the earth. 4For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain on the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth. 5And Noah did according to all that the LORD commanded him.
Dang again.... add 14 elephants and 14 rinos and 14 giraffes and 14 hippos and make sure the big dinos didn’t step on them and squish them.
Also, what about plants? Did God not make them? “every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth”
Again. awaiting with bated breath.
I won’t even go into some of the other stuff cause this should keep you busy for a while.
What happened chief? You lose your yen to crap all over the thread because “explainin” is hard because it takes intellectual rationality and consistency?
Thanks fieldmarshaldj. In a related story, Sweet 'n' Low was discovered in other meteorites, giving clues to the origin of artificial life. Exobiology/panspermia ping.
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I can also guess from your flip answer that you are not and have never been a Mechanical Engineer - or Program Manager - which would have enabled you to understand that nothing that actually works ever occurs by accident.
Further, since nature by design continually wears down, oxidizes, dissolves, spreads out, ages, and fades - nothing improves itself without specific and accurate intent.
If you believe otherwise, you are more suited to more fanciful occupations. Ballet, perhaps?
Only took one "unknowable Creator" - not 4,000.
So it IS possible to make real moonshine if you have sugar in space rocks.
I sense a real gold rush comin’...
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