Life in the making?

Astronomers find building blocks of life at distant starLEIDEN/GRONINGEN - Near a star millions of light years away, Dutch astronomers have found gasses that contain essential building blocks for the possible formation of life. It’s the first time these elements have been found near a star resembling our Sun, where possibly earth-like planets are forming.The discovery was made near the star IRS 46, in the constellation Ophiuchus (Serpent-bearer), at 375 million light years from Earth. Utilizing the American space organization NASA’s space telescope Spitzer, astrononomers of the Sterrenwacht Leiden and the institute for space research SRON found, among others, the gasses acethylene (C₂H₂) and hydrogen cyanide (HCN). Both are important elements for the formation of proteins and DNA, which are essential for life.In itself, the finding of these gasses is nothing new. They occur on planets in our own solar system, on comets and in remote corners of the universe. “The exciting thing is that we are seeing this in a place where possibly earth-like planets are forming”, says teamleader F. Lahuis. The discovery is “a surprise”, the space researcher poses.“In only one out of a hundred young stars with low masses we’ve studied, we clearly see the fingerprints of these organic substances.” Not only is IRS 46 a young star with a mass comparable to that of our Sun, but the found gasses also orbit the star in a disk of dust and other gasses at about the same distance as the Earth’s distance to the Sun.Lahuis will not live to know the answer to the question of whether life is indeed forming around the star. Only in millions of years will it be possible to ascertain if earth-like planets have formed.“That’s why we are looking at hundreds of stars in a number of star-formation locations,” says the Leiden astronomer. The data he and his team collect are themselves building blocks for the answer to the question of if, and how, life is forming elsewhere in the universe.“Several branches of science are involved in answering this question,” says Lahuis. “Eventually, by putting it all together, we hope to get a picture of how evolution works.”

Coragyps writes:It's what happened about 400 years ago. Para's post is wrong about distance: the link says "about 125 parsecs" or 3.26 times that many light years. The "millions of years" bit seems to be talking of the time we have to wait for the protostar to finish making its solar system.

brennakimi writes:hawt

do you come in syndication?

do you come in syndication?

Dutch astronomers have found gasses that contain essential building blocks for the possible formation of life... The discovery was made near the star IRS 46