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Searching Space Dust for Life's Ingredients


Waspie_Dwarf

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New Technique Could Be Used to Search Space Dust for Life's Ingredients

While the origin of life remains mysterious, scientists are finding more and more evidence that material created in space and delivered to Earth by comet and meteor impacts could have given a boost to the start of life. Some meteorites supply molecules that can be used as building blocks to make certain kinds of larger molecules that are critical for life.

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"However, these carbon-rich meteorites are relatively rare, comprising less than five percent of recovered meteorites, and meteorites make up just a portion of the extraterrestrial material that comes to Earth. Also, the building-block molecules found in them usually have been at low concentrations, typically parts-per-million or parts-per-billion. This raises the question of how significant their supply of raw material was."

My thoughts exactly. That's not much of a supply for what we need.

I'd like to see someone study the structure inside the Murchison meteorite to look for clues as to how the elements were assembled, or if it is the remains of a formerly populated planet.

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I'd like to see someone study the structure inside the Murchison meteorite

As there are multiple fragments of the Murchison Meteorite the inside has, effectively, been studied.

to look for clues as to how the elements were assembled,

In exactly the same way as any other organic rich meteorite. Why would this one be any different?

or if it is the remains of a formerly populated planet.

Meteorites are most definitely NOT the remains of a former planet, populated or otherwise. They are the debris left over from the formation of the solar system. Some are the remains of small dwarf planets such as Ceres, but not of anything much larger. Jupiter ensured that no large planet could form where the asteroid belt is today, and as that is where most meteorites originate scientists can be pretty certain that they are not the remains of a destroyed planet.

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Just a version of the panspermia theory, that life (or its building blocks in this case) was seeded from space. That life itself could survive in space AND bridge the distance between worlds seems unlikely, given the radiation, intense cold and near vacuum of space. I would suspect the chemicals in "star dust" would already be found right here at home on good old planet Earth in far larger quantities then that originating from a comet or meteorite, and exist in a much more benign environment than one found in outer space.

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I think extremophiles would have no problems journeying through space.

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Just for the fun of it...

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[/media] Edited by pallidin
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"meteors are definitely NOT the remains of a former planet"

Uhh... there have been over 120 meteorites identified as Martian.

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"meteors are definitely NOT the remains of a former planet"

Uhh... there have been over 120 meteorites identified as Martian.

He's refering specifically to the ones that originate from the astroid belt, which is what this thread is focused on.

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He's refering specifically to the ones that originate from the astroid belt, which is what this thread is focused on.

Thank you, exactly.

There are a few meteorites from Mars, the Moon and even Mercury, but these are rare and special cases. They are not as ancient as the vast majority of meteorites, which originate in the asteroid belt and were, themselves, blown into space by the impacts of other meteorites.

The point I was making is that there is no "destroyed" planet.

The vast majority of asteroids (which are the source of meteorites) were never able to form a planet because of the disruptive effects of Jupiter's gravity. Jupiter's Influence is immense. I've heard it said that in terms of mass there are only three things in the solar system:

  1. The Sun
  2. Jupiter
  3. Everything else.

Jupiter has 2.5 times the mass of all the other planets combined. It's gravity prevented a planet forming where the asteroid belt is and stunted the growth of Mars.

Edited by Waspie_Dwarf
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We are stardust.

We are golden.

And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden.

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