William Atkins
Tuesday, 18 August 2009 19:30
Science -
Space
Page 2 of 3
Dr. Jamie Elsila, of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (Greenbelt, Maryland) is part of the Stardust.
Dr. Elsila describes glycine:
"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. 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." [UPI (8/17/9): “
Glycine found in samples of a comet”]
Glycine (which is abbreviated as Gly or G) is an organic compound with the chemical formula: NH
2CH
2COOH.
The main function of glycine is to make proteins, along with a building block of other natural products.
The results of this discovery will be published in the journal
Meteoritics and Planetary Science.
A co-author of the study, along with Dr. Elsila, is Dr. Carl Pilcher, the director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute.
Dr. Pilcher states,
"The discovery of glycine in a comet supports the idea that the fundamental building blocks of life are prevalent in space, and strengthens the argument that life in the universe may be common rather than rare.” [UPI]
Page three concludes.
