Amino Acids From Interstellar Space

1. Amino Acids From Interstellar Space Craig Lieneck

2. Amino Acids – Brief Overview • All living things contain amino acids. • Critical for life. • Do all the work of running reactions in the body. • Make up all proteins, enzymes, etc.

3. Origins • Old paradigm – Amino acids formed on Earth. • Amino acids form in liquid water on a parent body. • Amino acids in meteorites formed on an early Solar System body.

4. SETI Institute Researchers NASA’s Ames Research Center, Moffet, CA Experiment Team Dr. Max Bernstein Ames Research Center

5. Experiment • Objectives: • To simulate the formation of amino acids in deep space conditions. • To accomplish this by ultraviolet photolysis of interstellar ice.

6. Experimental Setup • Conducted lab experiments at temperatures, pressures, and radiation conditions of interstellar clouds. • Many steps taken to exclude contamination. • Ensured that reactions did not take place prior to the experiment.

7. Experiment • Simulate space-like conditions by freezing mixtures of molecules (wood, alcohol, ammonia) to 15K, forming an ice film. • Simultaneously exposed to UV radiation.

8. Experiment • Warmed under a dynamic vacuum. • After this hydrolysis, glycine, alanine, serine, glycerol, ethanolamine were found.

9. What Does this mean? • Amino acids can form in deep space conditions. • Amino acids in meteorites may have originated before the solar system formed.

10. What does this mean? (cont.) • Earth may have been “seeded” with amino acids from space, causing a “jump-start”. • Increases the odds of life evolving on other places other than Earth.

11. Conclusions From the Team • "It was previously thought that the molecules that led to life could only have originated on Earth, we have shown that they could have come from space." - Louis Allamandola NASA Ames • "Of course, many of the amino acids in meteorites were made in liquid water, but it now seems likely that at least some of the smallest ones arose in space before the solar system formed." - Max Bernstein SETI Institute • "I find these results exciting because they address not only life on Earth, but its likelihood elsewhere," agreed Dr. Louis Allamandola of Ames. • "Amino acids are literally raining down out of the sky, and if that’s not a big deal then I don’t know what is." - Max Bernstein SETI Institute

12. References • http://www.seti-inst.edu/general/press_release/amino_acids_form_in_space_03_26_02.html • http://www.sciencenews.org/20020330/fob1.asp • http://amesnews.arc.nasa.gov/releases/2002/02_33AR.html • http://www-space.arc.nasa.gov/~astrochem/aanature.html • http://www-space.arc.nasa.gov/~astrochem/PDF/Bernsteinetal2002.pdf (Actual Paper)