Comets Bombarding Early Earth Delivered the Amino Acids Needed for the Origins of life

Jennifer G. Blank, Ph.D., and colleagues at the Bay Area Environmental Research Institute at the NASA/Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., set out to check whether amino acids could remain intact after a comet's descent through Earth's atmosphere. Previous analyses of comet dust samples returned to Earth by a NASA spacecraft eliminated any doubt that amino acids do occur in comets.

The team created xxperiments with powerful laboratory "guns" and computer models that replicated the conditions that existed inside comets that hit Earth's atmosphere at almost 25,000 miles per hour and crashed down upon the surface. The research is part of a broader scientific effort to understand how amino acids and other ingredients for the first living things appeared on a planet that billions of years ago was barren and desolate. Amino acids make up proteins, which are the workhorses of all forms of life, ranging from microbes to people.

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