Precursor of Life Molecules Found Around Star

Precursor of Life Molecules Found Around Star

www.livescience.com

Astronomers have found the first signature of complex organic molecules in the dust cloud around a distant star, suggesting that these building blocks of life may be a common feature of planetary systems.

In our solar system, the large carbon molecules, called tholins, have been found in comets and on Saturn's moon, Titan, giving its atmosphere a red tinge.

(visit the link for the full news article)

This is amazing. We see these chemicals in our own solar system and now they are found in a developing universe. Life has to be teeming throughout the universe.

www.livescience.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

HR4796A, located in the constellation Centaurus, is a massive 8-million-year-old star about 220 light-years from Earth. Its dust disk, discovered in 1991, is considered a prime example of a planetary system in formation.

It is amazing to think that in the distant future that solar system may harbour life not dissimilar to that which the Earth has witnessed.

I wonder if these tholins have not paid us a visit in the past

Earth Seeded by aliens? Red Rain... (from the BBC)

Horizon - Alien Rain - BBC2 tonight (uk)

Lots of fascinating stuff in space. Check these two out:

Astronomers find alcohol cloud spanning 288 billion miles
Cold Sugar in Space Provides Clue to the Molecular Origin of Life

So you've got an alcohol cloud and a sugar cloud. Awesome! Unfortunately for you drinkers, the alcohol they found is methanol, not ethanol. So it's not fit for consumption. But that doesn't mean there's no ethanol cloud out there...

On topic, here's the wiki link to tholins. Kinda boring...

reply to post by Beachcoma


Wow this is all great info. This lends alot of credence to the panspermia theory. A comet can pick up all this pre-biotic soup and drop it off here. Or it can drop off different chemicals which adds to the soup mix and get it going.

I think this stuff is great if you believe in "science fiction." When I read stories like this it almost makes me laugh. Am I really supposed to believe we know what is going on 220 light years from Earth or that we have any real idea of how life began? I just don't buy it. Even the article itself is vague. "Astronomers have found..." Astronomers? Who? Names/Locations? Doesn't say. Just gives the generic title astronomers. I'm just not that impressed with these types of stories that I see more and more of lately on the Internet. These articles seem to be nothing more than grand speculation being passed off as groundbreaking important scientific finds.


[edit on 9-1-2008 by zerotime]

Originally posted by zerotime
I think this stuff is great if you believe in "science fiction." When I read stories like this it almost makes me laugh. Am I really supposed to believe we know what is going on 220 light years from Earth or that we have any real idea of how life began? I just don't buy it. Even the article itself is vague. "Astronomers have found..." Astronomers? Who? Names/Locations? Doesn't say. Just gives the generic title astronomers. I'm just not that impressed with these types of stories that I see more and more of lately on the Internet. These articles seem to be nothing more than grand speculation being passed off as groundbreaking important scientific finds.


[edit on 9-1-2008 by zerotime]

You are absolutely right Zerotime !!! I mean last I checked The Starship Enterprise was still just fictional television. WHO ?? would've collected the tangible samples 220 light years away and made it back in time to reveal their conclusions ???

reply to post by _DISAVOWED_


So by your definition : Dark Matter/Energy doesn't exist, we truely do not know if there ARE extra-solar planets since we aren't there to see it first hand and we know, without a doubt, what our core is made of.
The links from Beachcoma explain HOW they detected the chemicals and list some astronomers who made the discovery. Since we all know the famous astronomers, such as J. Craig Wheeler (of the University of Texas in Austin) and Dr. Suzanne L. Hawley (of the University of Washington).
Seriously though, if the links listed names, would you even know who they were? And if you know of the people I listed above, Kudos to you and I am wrong about the post.

I am not claiming any knowledge to supercede that of anyone else. I do not know of the proffessors you stated either. I am not a scientist, but I would think that forensics and gathering tangible evidence to support such a discovery would be neccessary ??

I may be wrong. As with deep sea exploration where submesibles HAVE collected samples of particles from sea floor fissures, etc. I just think it's hard to collaborate what is OBSERVED from a telescope/ satellite with no actual physical proof ???

reply to post by _DISAVOWED_


I usually don't say things like this...but... there has been a growing number of 'we have found __organic or earth like___ in some place in space!' these past few years. More-so than before. Without any major Astronomer titles half the time. I wonder if they are not trying to get the public 'o'kay' with the idea of alien life? Or explain where 'aliens' came from if false-flag? Just ideas, neither I support, just ponder.


Also may I point out, we can tell composition for any dust cloud or star via light alone. Take an astronomy class, anyone with a good set of instruments can achieve this. Spectral analysis is how this is achieved. So it does not 'require' someone to go to a system to find out what is there chemically. Heck, you could find a system that has an Earth Like planet...compare the star to a star that this topic is covering... if they are alike in composition (or like our star even... then you could deduce that there is a high possibility of life on that Earth Like planet, simply because the make-up of the Star is like Ours or another 'known to have life-component' Star System... why is this? Because with Spectral Analysis you can tell what the Star is made of, thus figure out what kind of cloud of dust it comes from...thus deduce what kind of planets and life components might of formed. This is NOT a sure-fire way to tell, but a good way to make an educated guess at the very least.

It is easier to see organic molecules in a stellar-nebula than, say, a single planet with organic molecules. Because the nebula covers more space.

imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov...

reply to post by _DISAVOWED_


Dude, didn't mean to offend. Just saying that we have alot of knowledge that is based on long distance observation as opposed to hands-on observation. And yes we have had probes on sea floors and have made amazing discoveries while there - like bacteria that can survive in harsh environments (which we should look for on other planets).

well.. great news! now we just need to find out how this evolved into 3.2 GB of data in order to create a human! I would feel such a genius if i could create a running 1 kb computer virus out of random 01001010101000101 1s and of course, it should self-replicate or go extinct

note : 3.2 GB according to Oracle:

www.oracle.com...

(just googled it)

[edit on 9-1-2008 by sty]

reply to post by sty


Yeah. I will even aim smaller. I wish I knew how to juggle.
We have come a long way. I wonder what we'll find when we get to Europa's seas. Maybe that missing bit of info of how we went from soup to cell.