How did life’s building blocks end up on dwarf planet Ceres?
https://www.space.com/the-universe/dwarf-planets/how-did-lifes-building-blocks-end-up-on-dwarf-planet-ceres
How did life’s building blocks end up on dwarf planet Ceres?
https://www.space.com/the-universe/dwarf-planets/how-did-lifes-building-blocks-end-up-on-dwarf-planet-ceres
3 Comments
Amino acids are thought to be quite widespread. They don’t come from Earth. It’s more than likely those on Earth came from Space! This suggests that the seeds for biogenesis are everywhere.
Terms like “life’s building blocks” and “organic molecules” can be misleading. The evidence is strong that these are common materials in the universe, whether or not life arose to use them, and they are not necessarily a product of life.
It does suggest that life of the kind that uses this set of ingredients is possible elsewhere, but it’s not as if they are out there “for” life to develop.
It’s a bit like saying “the energy from the sun that drives photosynthesis is also found on the surface of Ceres.”
Aliphatic compounds, just a fancy way to say hydrocarbons that don’t have any alternating double or triple bonds that would other wise form a ring. For example methane, which is a really common compound outside of earth.