Experiment attempts to understand how life takes hold in vacuum of space
In a laboratory set up to simulate conditions in space, NASA scientists were able to produce a key component of RNA, which is found in the genetic makeup of all living organisms on Earth.
The experiment is part of a larger initiative to try to understand how the building blocks for life might have formed in space.
"We know they exist somehow in space, but we don't know how or where they form," said Stefanie Milam, an astrochemist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif.
The team started with a sample of ice laced with pyrimidine, a ring-shaped molecule made of carbon and nitrogen. Pyrimidine is the basis of three nucleic acids, including uracil, which is found in ribonucleic acid, or RNA.
The ice sample was kept in space-like conditions, including extreme cold — about minus-340 degrees Fahrenheit — high radiation and a near vacuum.
The sample was then exposed to ultraviolet radiation, similar to what might happen when a dense molecular cloud is pierced by a cosmic ray or a beam of light from a passing star.
As the ice warmed, scientists found new materials formed, including uracil.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34327899/ns/technology_and_science-science/
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