Amino Acids From
Interstellar Space
Craig Lieneck
Amino Acids – Brief Overview




All living things
contain amino acids.
Critical for life.
Do all the work of
running reactions in
the body.
Make up all proteins,
enzymes, etc.
Origins

Old paradigm – Amino acids formed on
Earth.
Amino acids form in liquid water on a parent
body.
 Amino acids in meteorites formed on an early
Solar System body.

Experiment Team

SETI Institute
Researchers
Dr. Max
Bernstein

NASA’s Ames
Research Center,
Moffet, CA
Ames Research Center
Experiment

Objectives:
 To
simulate the formation of amino acids in deep
space conditions.
 To accomplish this by ultraviolet photolysis of
interstellar ice.
Experimental Setup
Conducted lab experiments at
temperatures, pressures, and radiation
conditions of interstellar clouds.
 Many steps taken to exclude
contamination.
 Ensured that reactions did not take place
prior to the experiment.

Experiment
1.
2.
Simulate space-like
conditions by
freezing mixtures of
molecules (wood,
alcohol, ammonia)
to 15K, forming an
ice film.
Simultaneously
exposed to UV
radiation.
Experiment
3.
4.
Warmed under a
dynamic vacuum.
After this hydrolysis,
glycine, alanine,
serine, glycerol,
ethanolamine were
found.
What Does this mean?
Amino acids can form in deep space
conditions.
 Amino acids in meteorites may have
originated before the solar system formed.

What does this mean? (cont.)
Earth may have been “seeded” with amino
acids from space, causing a “jump-start”.
 Increases the odds of life evolving on
other places other than Earth.

Conclusions From the Team
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"It was previously thought that the molecules that led to life could
only have originated on Earth, we have shown that they could have
come from space." - Louis Allamandola NASA Ames
"Of course, many of the amino acids in meteorites were made in
liquid water, but it now seems likely that at least some of the
smallest ones arose in space before the solar system formed." - Max
Bernstein SETI Institute
"I find these results exciting because they address not only life on
Earth, but its likelihood elsewhere," agreed Dr. Louis Allamandola of
Ames.
"Amino acids are literally raining down out of the sky, and if that’s not
a big deal then I don’t know what is." - Max Bernstein SETI Institute
References
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http://www.setiinst.edu/general/press_release/amino_acids_form_in_space_03_26_02.html
http://www.sciencenews.org/20020330/fob1.asp
http://amesnews.arc.nasa.gov/releases/2002/02_33AR.html
http://www-space.arc.nasa.gov/~astrochem/aanature.html
http://www-space.arc.nasa.gov/~astrochem/PDF/Bernsteinetal2002.pdf
(Actual Paper)