Amino Acid Found In Comet Dust

[StarHalo]

"Glycine is an amino acid used by living organisms to make proteins, and this is the first time an amino acid has been found in a comet," said Dr. Jamie Elsila of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Our discovery supports the theory that some of life's ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts."

http://www.physorg.com/news169736472.html

Is a comet strike all any planet needs to become Earth-like? Oh, the implications..

 

[half-watt]

"Glycine is an amino acid used by living organisms to make proteins, and this is the first time an amino acid has been found in a comet," said Dr. Jamie Elsila of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Our discovery supports the theory that some of life's ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts."...

Might be a great scientist(???), but Dr. J is a crummy philosopher - a glaring logical fallacy (perhaps, the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy or a related fallacy) and non sequitur in DrJ's words, but this is the sad state of much of modern science - something which Richard Feynman bemoaned in one of his books on the demise of the scientific method in science (a great read whose title escapes me at the moment).

 

[jtr1962]

Is a comet strike all any planet needs to become Earth-like? Oh, the implications..

The planet still needs to be in the right zone around its star to support liquid water and an atmosphere. But this discovery makes it seem that once we find planets in suitable orbits, they're be more likely to have life than not. All you need are liquid water, amino acids, and a few billion years.

 

[Illum]

one solitary component doesn't necessarily represent life as we know it as a whole, now if some of those water melts and there's some basic protists then we might have an issue...

 

[Patriot]

All you need are liquid water, amino acids, and a few billion years.

Well, for human life according to the naturalistic evolution model. Simple life forms such as nucleus-less bacteria have been around for at least 3.5 billion years, a billion years or less from the speculated starting point.

EDIT: Just wanted to give you the benefit and say that if you meant complex life, that only started about 540 million years ago, so I'll accept your "few billion years in that case." In the Cambrian flash/explosion, over 70 phyla appeared very rapidly (in 3-10 million years) and since then about 40 phyla have disappeared with no new ones sprouting since. Whether or not the preceding billions of years prior to the Cambrian explosion was actually "needed" or required is an unknown. I would argue that a long time frame wasn't needed for Cambrian animals to exist, rather the timing of the explosion was beneficial to their existence.

 

[FlashInThePan]

Neat! The implications are pretty staggering, huh?

Interestingly enough, while this may be the first time that an amino acid's been found in a comet (which is basically a large, dirty iceball in space), amino acids have already been discovered in meteorites (the rocks that plunge to earth). The Murchison meteorite, found in 1969, contains alanine, glycine, and a few other tempting organic compounds. Still, it kinda makes you wonder, doesn't it?

- FITP

 

[Monocrom]

Is a comet strike all any planet needs to become Earth-like? Oh, the implications..

As the good doctor mentioned, "some of Life's ingredients."

Clearly it takes more than a random comet strike.

It could suggest an alternate theory. Perhaps comets pick up traces of dead, simple, organisms as they hurtle through space.

 

[binky]

Perhaps comets pick up traces of dead, simple, organisms as they hurtle through space.

Now that seems to me like an even more amazing idea.

 

[Monocrom]

Now that seems to me like an even more amazing idea.

At the very bottom, darkest reaches of the sea; creatures were discovered that gave off their own light. Until equipment was created that could record images that far down, many scientists speculated that no creatures could live that far down under such enormous pressures. Now we know otherwise.

There could be creatures that can exist in Space. Perhaps none in our galaxy, but could be a different story in other portions of Space. As they die off, their remains would float through Space. Perhaps being picked up by a speeding comet.

 

[LEDAdd1ct]

*theme from "Star Trek" begins playing in the background...*

 

[Monocrom]

*theme from "Star Trek" begins playing in the background...*

Perhaps... But it's one theory. After all, considering what scientists have traditionally thought of comets; it seems strange indeed that an amino acid would be discovered in comet dust.

The question becomes, how did it get there?

My theory is just one idea. I hope others share their own. Should make for a good discussion.

 

[lctorana]

There could be creatures that can exist in Space. Perhaps none in our galaxy, but could be a different story in other portions of Space.

I saw that episode. It was a giant single celled thing. And Spock was right - Bones wouldn't have survived.

 

[Monocrom]

I saw that episode. It was a giant single celled thing. And Spock was right - Bones wouldn't have survived.

Oh, you mean the giant Planet Eater.

I had honestly forgot about that episode. I should clarify, I meant smaller (much much smaller) organisms that are alive and live in Space. Very basic creatures that contain very basic traces of amino acids.

 

[Nyctophiliac]

Oh, you mean the giant Planet Eater.

I do hope nobody is confusing 'The Doomsday Machine' (giant planet eater - mechanical) with 'The Immunity Syndrome' (Giant planet eater - organic).

There's never an anti matter bomb around when you want one!

 

[Patriot]

Just a reminder guys, amino acids are not life only molecules that when arranged in an insanely complex order can form proteins. It would not be a creature if it only has "basic traces" of amino acids. A living creature by necessity would only contain complex amino acids. A one cell organism would still be anywhere from several large steps away to thousands of trillions of steps depending on how you decide to break down the construction process. It's so complex that we don't even know completely how it works yet.

I was recently listening to a podcast in which a guest speaker who was a PhD in molecular biology, who also heads up the laboratory at a well know university, talked about the complexity of the cell. He said that text books written just two years ago are already well out of date. The more they learn about the cell, the more they're confounded by its overwhelming complexity. There is such an abundance of informational and regulatory data that new fields have arisen such as Systems Biology. The amount of data is so massive that the old ways of reduction could no longer cope and apparently Systems Biologists help to deal with the math and computers involved in further discovery and cataloging. It was very fascinating.

 

[ANDREAS FERRARI]

...the scientific method in science....

There are some people here who went to college for 11 years and have no idea what this means!!!!

 

[Patriot]

lol.....well, I'd probably say they know what it means but are reluctant to adhere to the method because they wouldn't be able to speculate on things that science could never prove or disprove to begin with. By its very nature science can only examine what is empirically observable. Since some in the science community don't like these constraints they often venture outside of the observable, demonstrable, repeatable, boundaries. They can only deal with physical matter which is perhaps why most of them make such "crumby philosophers."

 

[lctorana]

I do hope nobody is confusing 'The Doomsday Machine' (giant planet eater - mechanical) with 'The Immunity Syndrome' (Giant planet eater - organic).

There's never an anti matter bomb around when you want one!

Correct. The Immunity Syndrome.

(although The Doomsday Machine was a great episode, too.)

So bits of this organism, after Kirk blew it up, have been picked up by a comet and been dumped on earth?

Don't like the sound of that. Where's my tricorder when I need it?

 

[orbital]

Perhaps... But it's one theory. After all, considering what scientists have traditionally thought of comets; it seems strange indeed that an amino acid would be discovered in comet dust.

The question becomes, how did it get there?

My theory is just one idea. I hope others share their own. Should make for a good discussion.

+

Nebulas have endless array of elements and compounds floating throughout,..add some angular momentum (increasing gravitational pull)
and the rest is literally history/

 

[SFG2Lman]

the intriguing thing about the life at the bottom of the mariana trench is that is does not depend on the sun whatsoever for the food chain. Bacteria feed off the chemicals spewed out of the volcanic vents down there and microorganisms feed on them etc etc, This means that a planet does NOT have to be near the sun, volcanic activity could imply life. Thats why one of Saturn's moons is being looked at so closely. The moon is frozen under a sheet of water and methane, but is very active volcanically (is that a word?). This **could** mean that under the frozen surface there could be liquid water and organisms that require no light from the sun.

I think the universe is far too large for us to be the only ones in it. My .02