building blocks of life
One of Life’s Building Blocks can Form in Space
Peptides are one of the smallest biomolecules and are one of life's critical building blocks. New research shows that they…
Did Asteroid Impacts Provide Both the Heat and Raw Ingredients to Enable Life?
This is our Great Question: How did life begin on Earth? Anyone who says they have the answer is telling…
Glycine Can Form In Interstellar Clouds
Author's note: This article was written in collaboration with Vincent Kofman, a co-author of the paper it discusses and Post…
One of the Building Blocks of Life Can Form in the Harsh Environment of Deep Space Itself. No Star Required
In many ways, stars are the engines of creation. Their energy drives a whole host of processes necessary for life.…
We’re Made of Starstuff. Especially From Extremely Massive Stars
A new study shows how massive young stars create the kind of organic molecules that are necessary for life. A…
Curiosity Finds Organic Molecules That Could Have Been Produced by Life on Mars
What do coal, crude oil, and truffles have in common? Go ahead. We'll wait. The answer is thiophenes, a molecule…
Rosetta Saw the Building Blocks of Life on Comet 67P
Why is there so little nitrogen in Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P)? That's a question scientists asked themselves when they looked at…