Special delivery: Ancient asteroids may have delivered the building blocks of life to Earth:
In earlier experiments, researchers found the nucleobases adenine, guanine, and uracil by placing asteroid grains in a"meteorite tea" to extract substances into a solution, which was then analyzed.
For the more recent experiments, cooler water and more sensitive study methods were used to extract and identify the nucleobases cytosine and thymine, while more sensitive study methods found the molecules, researchers say. “This group has managed a technique that is more like cold brew than hot tea and is able to pull out more delicate compounds,” said Jason Dworkin, another study co-author who directs research at NASA's Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory, in NASA's research update. “I was amazed that they had seen cytosine, which is very fragile.” , Carl Sagan famously said,"We are made of star stuff.
“This is adding more and more pieces; meteorites have been found to have sugars and bases now,” Dworkin said. “It’s exciting to see progress in the making of the fundamental molecules of biology from space.”
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