Research
Earth's water was around before Earth
To understand how life emerged, scientists investigate the chemistry of carbon and water. In the case of water, they track the various forms, or isotopes, of its constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms over the history of the universe, like a giant treasure hunt.
To understand how life emerged, scientists investigate the chemistry of carbon and water. In the case of water, they track the various forms, or isotopes, of its constituent hydrogen and oxygen atoms over the history of the universe, like a giant treasure hunt.
Researchers from the CNRS, Paris-Saclay University, the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), and the University of Pau and the Pays de l'Adour (UPPA), with support from the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN), have followed the trail of the isotopic composition of water back to the start of the solar system, in the inner regions where Earth and the other terrestrial planets were formed.
Could the blueprint for life have been generated in asteroids?
Using new analyses, scientists have just found the last two of the five informational units of DNA and RNA that had yet to be discovered in samples from meteorites.
Using new analyses, scientists have just found the last two of the five informational units of DNA and RNA that had yet to be discovered in samples from meteorites.
While it is unlikely that DNA could be formed in a meteorite, this discovery demonstrates that these genetic parts are available for delivery and could have contributed to the development of the instructional molecules on early Earth.
The discovery, by an international team with NASA researchers, gives more evidence that chemical reactions in asteroids can make some of life's ingredients, which could have been delivered to ancient Earth by meteorite impacts or perhaps the infall of dust.