A
fundamental ingredient for life has been discovered in a comet sample,
supporting the idea that such icy objects seeded early Earth with the stuff
needed to whip up living organisms.
New
research firms up past suggestions of glycine, the simplest amino acid used to
make proteins, inside samples from the comet
Wild 2.
"This
is the first time an amino acid has been found in a comet," said lead
researcher 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."
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