. 24/7 Space News .
Partial Ingredients For DNA And Protein Found Around Star

File illustration

Pasadena CA (JPL) Dec 23, 2005
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered some of life's most basic ingredients in the dust swirling around a young star. The ingredients - gaseous precursors to DNA and protein - were detected in the star's terrestrial planet zone, a region where rocky planets such as Earth are thought to be born.

The findings represent the first time that these gases, called acetylene and hydrogen cyanide, have been found in a terrestrial planet zone outside of our own.

"This infant system might look a lot like ours did billions of years ago, before life arose on Earth," said Fred Lahuis of Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands and the Dutch space research institute called SRON. Lahuis is lead author of a paper to be published in the Jan. 10 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Lahuis and his colleagues spotted the organic, or carbon-containing, gases around a star called IRS 46. The star is in the Ophiuchus (pronounced OFF-ee-YOO-kuss), or "snake carrier," constellation about 375 light-years from Earth. This constellation harbors a huge cloud of gas and dust in the process of a major stellar baby boom. Like most of the young stars here and elsewhere, IRS 46 is circled by a flat disk of spinning gas and dust that might ultimately clump together to form planets.

When the astronomers probed this star's disk with Spitzer's powerful infrared spectrometer instrument, they were surprised to find the molecular "barcodes" of large amounts of acetylene and hydrogen cyanide gases, as well as carbon dioxide gas. The team observed 100 similar young stars, but only one, IRS 46, showed unambiguous signs of the organic mix.

"The star's disk was oriented in just the right way to allow us to peer into it," said Lahuis.

The Spitzer data also revealed that the organic gases are hot. So hot, in fact, that they are most likely located near the star, about the same distance away as Earth is from our sun.

"The gases are very warm, close to or somewhat above the boiling point of water on Earth," said Dr. Adwin Boogert of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "These high temperatures helped to pinpoint the location of the gases in the disk."

Organic gases such as those found around IRS 46 are found in our own solar system, in the atmospheres of the giant planets and Saturn's moon Titan, and on the icy surfaces of comets. They have also been seen around massive stars by the European Space Agency's Infrared Space Observatory, though these stars are thought to be less likely than sun-like stars to form life-bearing planets.

Here on Earth, the molecules are believed to have arrived billions of years ago, possibly via comets or comet dust that rained down from the sky. Acetylene and hydrogen cyanide link up together in the presence of water to form some of the chemical units of life's most essential compounds, DNA and protein. These chemical units are several of the 20 amino acids that make up protein and one of the four chemical bases that make up DNA.

"If you add hydrogen cyanide, acetylene and water together in a test tube and give them an appropriate surface on which to be concentrated and react, you'll get a slew of organic compounds including amino acids and a DNA purine base called adenine," said Dr. Geoffrey Blake of Caltech, a co-author of the paper. "And now, we can detect these same molecules in the planet zone of a star hundreds of light-years away."

Follow-up observations with the W.M. Keck Telescope atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii confirmed the Spitzer findings and suggested the presence of a wind emerging from the inner region of IRS 46's disk. This wind will blow away debris in the disk, clearing the way for the possible formation of Earth-like planets.

Related Links
Spitzer at Caltech
SpaceDaily
Search SpaceDaily
Subscribe To SpaceDaily Express



Memory Foam Mattress Review
Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily
XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News


Pulsar Racing Through Space Reveals A Comet Like Trail
Milan, Italy (SPX) Dec 19, 2005
Scientists have uncovered a new feature in one of the closest pulsars to Earth, the Geminga pulsar. Plowing through space at 120 kilometers per second (or Milan to New York City in 57 seconds), this dense nugget of a dead star leaves in its wake a comet-like trail of high-energy electrons.

---------------------------------------------------------
New from Telescopes.com!

It's new. And it's downright terrific!

Celestron's CPC Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope is the scope you've been waiting for! It offers new alignment technology, advanced engineering, and bold new design at a new, low price!

In fact, Celestron's Professional Computerized (CPC) scope with revolutionary SkyAlign Alignment Technology redefines everything that amateur astronomers are looking for. It offers quick and simple alignment, GPS technology, unsurpassed optical quality, ease of use, advanced ergonomics, enhanced computerization and, most important, affordability.

Want to view M-31 tonight? One button takes you there!

Shop for telescopes online at Telescopes.com! today!
------------------------------------------------------------







  • ZeroG Aerospace Launches Affordable Space Tourism for the Masses
  • Japan To Enter Space Race In A Fashion That Is
  • Virgin GlobalFlyer Record Attempt To Take Off From Shuttle Runway At Kennedy
  • NIAC Seeks Phase 1 Proposals To Advance Vision For Space Exploration

  • ASU Geologists Suggest Mars Features Are Result Of Meteorite Strikes Not Lakes
  • Mars Region Probably Less Watery In Past Than Thought Says Boulder Study
  • Veil Of Mystery Slowly Lifts From British Space Mission To Mars
  • Opportunity Completes Atmospheric Science Campaign At Erebus

  • ILS Atlas V Gets Go Ahead To Launch Defense Weather Satellite
  • Ariane-5 ECA Launches A Weather Satellite
  • Ariane 5 ECA Launches A Weather Satellite
  • India To Launch Its Heaviest Satellite From Kourou

  • Sahara's Edge Studied From Ground, Air And Space To Improve Water Management
  • A New Generation Of Russian EO Satellites In Orbit
  • New Era Of Low Cost EOs Dawns As First Topsat Images Received
  • Unprecedented View Of Upper Atmosphere Created By NASA Scientists

  • The Ice Dwarf Cometh
  • NASA Sets Sights On First Pluto Mission
  • Atlas 5 Launch Of Pluto Mission New Horizions Delayed Five Days
  • Mysterious Deep-Space Object Raises Questions On Origin Of Solar System

  • Partial Ingredients For DNA And Protein Found Around Star
  • Pulsar Racing Through Space Reveals A Comet Like Trail
  • Astronomers Link Old Stars And Mysterious Cosmic Explosions
  • Highest Energy Photons Ever Detected As Emanating From Milky Way Equator

  • Moon Storms
  • Chinese Lunar Land Sale A Great Idea But Illegal Says Government
  • Russian Technologies Can Put Cosmonauts On Moon
  • India Awaits Approval For Chandrayan Lunar Mission

  • First Modernized GPS Satellite Built By Lockheed Martin Declared Operational
  • Launch Of First Galileo Satellite Delayed
  • Inmarsat To Run Galileo GPS Network Operations Arm
  • GPS Systems Getting Smaller

  • The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2006 - SpaceDaily.AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA PortalReports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additionalcopyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement