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UC Berkeley and University of Hawaii scientists have shown that complex molecules can form on icy rocks in space, suggesting that comets may have seeded early Earth with the building blocks of life. The team zapped icy snowballs of carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons, producing complex molecules, such as dipeptides, that are capable of catalyzing the formation of more complex structures.
Tag: meteorites
UC Berkeley junior hot on the trail of Sutter’s Mill meteorites
May 17, 2012:
When a fireball exploded over California’s Gold Country on April 22, Cal geology major Jason Utas wrapped up his final exam and headed to Sutter’s Mill with a dozen of his friends to look for fragments. Four of them, including Utas, found small pieces of a rare carbonaceous chondrite, a type of meteorite that may have carried the building blocks of life to Earth billions of years ago.
Reading the life history of a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite
March 3, 2011:
A new, high-resolution analysis of a dust grain from the Allende meteorite documents the widely varying environments the grain wandered through in its 4.5 billion-year travels around the solar system.
