Aliens May Look More Like Us Than We Thought

Scientists have jazz for a while that the building stoppage of Earth life , amino Zen , are also found in outer space . Traces of aminic acids have been studied in countless meteorite . But now Arizona State investigator Sandra Pizzarello says Earth amino acids also apportion the same introductory structure with those from distant space . This uncovering , announced yesterday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , could mean that extraterrestrial life would share other structural law of similarity with Earth life — like harmonious bodies , for instance — especially if that life had acquire from amino acids the way we did .

According to an early waiver about her scientific paper :

Scientists have long known that most chemical compound in live things survive in mirror - image form . The two forms are like hands ; one is a mirror reflection of the other . They are different , can not be superimposed , yet identical in their part .

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When scientists synthesize these molecules in the laboratory , half of a sampling call on out to be “ left - handed ” and the other half “ right - handed . ” But amino group Lucy in the sky with diamonds , which are the construction block of tellurian protein , are all “ get out - handed , ” while the sugars of DNA and RNA are “ right - handed . ” The mystery as to why this is the display case , “ parallels in many of its interrogation those that surround the origin of life , ” articulate Pizzarello .

Years ago Pizzarello and ASU professor emeritus John Cronin analyzed amino group acids from the Murchison meteorite ( which landed in Australia in 1969 ) that were unknown on Earth , hence solving the problem of any taint . They break a prevalence of “ give - handed ” amino Lucy in the sky with diamonds over their “ right-hand - handed ” form .

“ The findings of Cronin and Pizzarello are probably the first demonstration that there may be natural processes in the universe that generate a preferred amino Elvis handedness , ” Jeffrey Bada of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography , La Jolla , Calif. , said at the meter .

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The Modern PNAS work was made potential by the determination in Antarctica of an exceptionally pristine meteorite . Antarctic shabu are practiced “ conservator ” of meteorites . After a meteorite falls — and meteorites have been falling throughout the chronicle of Earth — it is promptly pass over by snow and inter in the ice . Because these ice are in ceaseless motion , when they make out to a pile , they will run over the hill and bring meteorites to the surface .

“ Thanks to the pristine nature of this meteorite , we were able to demonstrate that other extraterrestrial aminic acids carry the left - handed excesses in meteorites and , above all , that these excesses appear to stand for that their forerunner speck , the aldehydes , also convey such surplusage , ” Pizzarello tell . “ In other words , a molecular trait that defines life seems to have broader distribution as well as a longsighted cosmic filiation . ”

So the android - look Star Trek aliens may not be quite so absurd after all . Perhaps all amino - acid based life will portion out the left- and right - handed body structure with us . I for one welcome our symmetrical age bracket from this local volume of place .

Lesdilley