NASA found amino acid in space

[baftan]

"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://stardust.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news115.html

Does it really?

I must admit it is an exciting discovery, but how do we know that amino acids are there only for the purpose of, or as signatures for “life”? Isn’t it possible that amino acids can exist without life? The same comets are hitting other planets in the solar system too, but they do not create any life –as far as we know.

I am not so convinced that the latest NASA finding necessarily “prove” the source of life comes from outer space. What happened to DNA or evolution; or special position of earth (in terms of magnetic force, distance from its star, etc.)? NASA found water in Mars -main ingredient of life as we know-; but that’s it, still no life. At the end of the day, water can exist without life.

Are they trying to say that the elements of life (and other issues on earth) have relation and share similarities with the rest of the galaxy? Such as gravity, atoms, water and/or Glycine…

I want to see some code; otherwise I will continue to believe that the life on earth has its own unique emergence and evolution history, just as any other possible isolated life islands in any other life-able planets in the universe.

 

[thinking]

I agree.

If I can fry any life forms by exposing them to a lit match then how can any life form at high velocites , which temps. excced a match temp. survive ?

 

[jnc1110]

Wow. I'm in complete accordance to your argument. Just because there is Glycine floating around in our solar system doesn't mean it gives life. Additionally, just because there are the ingredients for solar fusion here in our biosphere doesn't mean we can create [true] solar power (because it takes a lot of energy). Maybe some advanced physico-chemist could explain how it works.

 

[visceral_instinct]

I agree Baftan, just finding an amino acid doesn't mean that must be where life came from.

 

[swivel]

This doesn't have to mean that life came from interstellar space. What it really demonstrates is how READILY the building-blocks of life can form. If they can do it in freezing vacuum, imagine how quickly those structures formed on a planet the size of Earth which provided trillions of little laboratories of every salinity/temp/wetness for millions of years.

The precursors to life should have been in existence while the Earth was still being bombarded by the accretion disk. I bet the RNA world was in existence within the first few hundred thousand years of Earth's cooling phase. DNA within a million.

 

[Nasor]

I must admit it is an exciting discovery, but how do we know that amino acids are there only for the purpose of, or as signatures for “life”?

No one ever claimed this.

Isn’t it possible that amino acids can exist without life?

Of course.

The same comets are hitting other planets in the solar system too, but they do not create any life –as far as we know.

Did anyone say they were???

I am not so convinced that the latest NASA finding necessarily “prove” the source of life comes from outer space.

The guy quoted in the article didn't say it proved that the source of life came from space. He said it "supports the theory."

 

[Ophiolite]

Well baftan, at the risk of offending you, but in the interests of educating you, your English comprehension stinks.

"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."

See the key phrase "some of life's ingredients". Some of the material from which life is thought to have formed. There is no suggestion, no hint, and certainly no claim that amino acids are there for 'the purpose' of life. Equally nothing about amino acids being a signature of life (though, indeed they could be, but the scientist makes no claim in that direction.) Yet you attack the pronouncement on the basis of suspecting two claims that were not actually made.

You might also notice that the suggestion is that 'some' of life's ingrediants could have arrived in this way. Not all of life's ingredients.

You then continue with some nonsense about why hasn't life arisen on other planets where comets have struck. Wel, duh! Two points: firstly, how do you know it hasn't? Secondly, you not only need ingredients you need the right environment.

Learn to live with it. A very wide range of organic molecules are found in space. Over one hundred types at the last count. It would be surprising if some of these did not play a role in the emergence of life on Earth. As our detecting instruments and methods become ever more refined we shall discover more and more of 'some of life's ingredients' out there.

 

[baftan]

Well baftan, at the risk of offending you, but in the interests of educating you, your English comprehension stinks.

"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."

Learn to live with it. A very wide range of organic molecules are found in space. Over one hundred types at the last count. It would be surprising if some of these did not play a role in the emergence of life on Earth. As our detecting instruments and methods become ever more refined we shall discover more and more of 'some of life's ingredients' out there.

Hang on a minute, I am not being offended do not worry; and any sentence may include its implication, secret meanings, etc: The quoted paragraph and the linked article have enough amount of information to relate space and life -on earth. I do not need a lawyer type "He mentioned this but never hinted or claimed this" shit: I can smell it, isn't that enough? I can create the monsters and unsaid claims if I get suspicious of weather report. At the end of the day, my human universe is fuelled with imagination, not with amino acids. Amino acids have always been there, even well before we could imagine them. But they have become the subjects of our universe only when we started to imagine them. So stop bothering with how did I create my imaginery questions.

Question: How do we define "life"?

Fact: No matter how wild we could imagine, "currently" there is no "evidence" of life existing outside planet earth. Possible, could be, this and that. No evidence, not yet. Full Stop.

This "life" is, of course, the life "we know": We found unimaginable conditions on earth still teaming with life. We have enlarged our understanding about life, and we also know that amino acids are tools which are used by life, as we know by its name, DNA. If we mention that one of the components of life, amino acids, found in space; this also -voluntarily/involuntarily- invokes the question of "what else, what other parts or -maybe codes- of life could have been arrived from outer space?".

Without a code, I would not relate life -on earth- with an external source, that is to say, I did not get the idea of life out of amino acids. What if we could replicate amino acids with some other nano mechanisms, and the whole system still works? This is also a probability, yet it is more likely than finding evidence of extraterrestrial life forms in near future. Will amino acids still become the parts of life's ingredients, yes they will; but not necessarily...

And, can life on earth emerge by it's own earthly dynamics without an initial code, pulse, instruction or essence? I think it can. Other than that, everything originates from Big Bang...

 

[Ophiolite]

Setting aside your waffle you appear not to wish to accept that amino acids exist in space and that many of these could readily have reached the Earth and that since amino acids are a vital ingredient of life the space orginating amino acids could have played a role in the emergence of life. You wish to deny this? Fine. Wallow in your ignorance.

The NASA article does not make the claim that life originated in space, no matter what your over active imagination, paranoia, or just plain poor reading skills may say. Several paragrpahs of meandering from you will not change that simple fact.

 

[baftan]

Setting aside your waffle you appear not to wish to accept that amino acids exist in space and that many of these could readily have reached the Earth and that since amino acids are a vital ingredient of life the space orginating amino acids could have played a role in the emergence of life. You wish to deny this? Fine. Wallow in your ignorance.

The NASA article does not make the claim that life originated in space, no matter what your over active imagination, paranoia, or just plain poor reading skills may say. Several paragrpahs of meandering from you will not change that simple fact.

Isn't this a double standard? You can easily get the idea that I "do not wish to accept amino acids exist in space". Did I say anything like that? No, but it is your right to deduce your own opinion depending on what you understood from what I say. Should I brand you with "over active imagination, paranoia, or just plain poor reading skills" ? I do not think so, all I can see that you are not different than me in terms of getting what you want to get out of a text.

Think it from this perspective:

Life is originated from outer space> Nobody said such a thing.
Life's components are found in outer space> This is the summary of NASA text.

What is the difference? If this guy did not say anything about life's origin, so he could have mentioned other components or elements of life found in space, such as minerals, subatomic activities, heat, etc. If he relates life with amino acids, that means he gives particular importance to amino acids in terms of defining what life is.

I repeat this: It's nothing to do with what I am wishing or not wishing; it's about the definition of life. Amino acids are over there with a great abundance (just as many other microscopic entity), yet life is not widespread in our solar system. That's why I keep saying "I want to see the code", otherwise amino acids are just tools for DNA.

Do you have any other brand for me, for life or for amino acids?