Now this is cool. Glycine, an amino acid (a building block of proteins), has been found in a comet for the first time, bolstering the theory that raw ingredients of life arrived on Earth from outer space. According to news reports, microscopic traces of glycine were discovered in a sample of particles retrieved from the tail of comet Wild 2 by the NASA spacecraft Stardust deep in the solar system some 242 million miles from Earth, in January 2004.Tapping back over 20 years into my college biology courses...Chains of amino acids are strung together to form protein molecules in everything from hair to the enzymes that regulate chemical reactions inside living organisms. Scientists have long puzzled over whether these complex organic compounds originated on Earth or in space. The latest findings add credence to the notion that extraterrestrial objects such as meteorites and comets may have seeded ancient Earth, and other planets, with the raw materials of life that formed elsewhere in the cosmos.
As Carl Sagan wrote, (and I am paraphrasing) we all have a bit of star dust in us.
Assuming you're not one of those who takes the bible literally (seeing as how it is a work of man, no matter how inspired it may be, taking it literally has always seemed like a bad idea to me), how does finding the building blocks of life in the depths of space effect (or is that affect in this case, I'm never sure about that one) your faith?
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't affect my faith at all. Who's to say that using meteors to pepper the universe with life wasn't one of God's methods? Certainly not I.
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