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IPFS News Link • Space Travel and Exploration

New analysis of Apollo lunar samples solves decades-old mystery

• http://www.gizmag.com, CHRIS WOOD

Amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, which are central to creating organic structures like skin and hair. When the organic matter was found in soil samples brought back from the moon during the Apollo missions, there was a big question mark over how exactly it had ended up there, as the environment on the Lunar surface is completely inhospitable to any known forms of life.

It's generally accepted that there are four possibilities. Firstly, it's possible that the solar wind – a weak charged particles from the sun – contained the constituent elements of amino acids, and landed them on the lunar surface, with them later forming together to form the organic matter. 

The second possibility is similar to the first, but with the precursor molecules arriving on the Lunar surface from rocket exhaust, while the third postulates that they were delivered to the Moon via asteroids, which are thought to habor chemical reactions that create amino acids.


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