A meteorite that exploded above Canada 11 years ago has provided strong evidence that life's building blocks came from space.
Fragments of the rock that landed on Tagish Lake, British Columbia, yielded a mix of organic compounds.
They included amino acids and monocarboxylic acids, both essential to the evolution of the first simple life forms on Earth.
Analysis of the chemicals revealed information about their history on the asteroid from which the meteorite came, and lent weight to the theory that organic material originates in gas and dust clouds between the stars.
We are star dust: Lake Tagish in British Columbia yielded fragments of space rock that have led scientists to conclude that the building blocks of life originated in clouds of dust and gas between the stars
If the theory is right, the building blocks of life would have been spread throughout our developing solar system.
They may, for example, also have provided a foothold for life on Mars.
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