Building Block for Life Found in Mars Meteorite

[Crisp]

Building Block for Life Found in Mars Meteorite

 

 

Scientists have found a potential building block for life in a Martian meteorite recovered from Antarctica.

 

Parts of the rock contain rich concentrations of boron, which biochemists suspect played a key role in the development of ribonucleic acid, or RNA.

 

?I had read how important boron could have been in the origins of life, stabilizing a part of RNA,? biologist James Stephenson, with the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the University of Hawaii told Discovery News.

 

RNA is a biological molecule, which scientists believe was the stepping stone for life on Earth. It, like deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, which evolved later, can store and transmit information to cells.

 

RNA is comprised of three basic components: phosphate, a ribose, which is a five-carbon sugar, and a nucleobase. Both phosphates and nucleobases have been found in meteorites previously. Ribose has never been found beyond Earth.

 

?Of the three parts that make RNA, the ribose is the tricky part. We haven?t been able to explain how it could form naturally,? Stephenson said.

 

 

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[spacer]

A cool discovery. I'd be willing to bet that Mars did have life at some point, so it's neat that we have evidence it was highly likely.

 

But, how do these scientists know the meteorite, found on Earth, is from Mars?

[Dot Matrix]

A cool discovery. I'd be willing to bet that Mars did have life at some point, so it's neat that we have evidence it was highly likely.

 

But, how do these scientists know the meteorite, found on Earth, is from Mars?

Composition.

[Growled Member]

A cool discovery. I'd be willing to bet that Mars did have life at some point, so it's neat that we have evidence it was highly likely.

 

 

I suspect it did too. I just wish we could find evidence of it. 

[Dot Matrix]

I suspect it did too. I just wish we could find evidence of it. 

I feel we already have, just nothing we can call conclusive.

[Tuishimi]

It never supported life... I'd be willing to bet on that.  The "building blocks of life" are everywhere in the universe.  Boron?  I would suspect we might find it throughout the solar system as it is produced in general space from colliding cosmic rays and other, lighter forms of matter.  Not sure why that is suddenly such a big deal, except to sensationalize and continue interest in the possibilities of life on Mars.  Then again, imagining such things IS fun.