Did space dust start life on Earth?

摘要

Amino acids could have found their way from deep space to start life on Earth, say scientists in Italy. Piero Ugliengo and Albert Rimola from the University of Turin used quantum mechanics to show that amino acids synthesised in deep space molecular clouds can be captured by interstellar dust particles. Ugliengo says that the particles could have travelled to Earth, where the amino acids were released into the 'primordial soup' ready for the synthesis of early proteins.