Interstellar Peptides Point to Extraterrestrial Origin of Life’s Building Blocks

Research has demonstrated that peptides, crucial organic compounds, can form on cosmic dust particles even in the presence of water. This challenges previous beliefs and suggests that the formation of life’s building blocks in space is feasible, despite the conditions. Credit: SciTechDaily.com

Peptides are organic compounds that play a crucial role in many biological processes, for example, as enzymes. A research team led by Dr. Serge Krasnokutski from the Astrophysics Laboratory at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy at the University of Jena had already demonstrated that simple peptides can form on cosmic dust particles. However, it was previously assumed that this would not be possible if molecular ice, which covers the dust particle, contains water – which is usually the case.

Hence, the assumption until now has been that if peptides form in space, they do so only to a limited extent.“The highly precise mass spectrometric analyses now possible at the University of Poitiers, however, showed that the presence of water in the molecular ice slows down the formation of peptides by fifty percent, but they still form,” he explains. “When you consider the time scales on which astronomical processes occur, this slowdown is practically negligible.

Source: Tech Daily Report (techdailyreport.net)

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