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This page details lab experiments that show that amino acids, essential building blocks of proteins, and hence essential for 'life as we know it', can be created in interstellar gas clouds.
Thus these compunds should be widespread through space, and be incorporated into planetary systems and comets, meaning that it is likely that life in the universe is the rule rather than the exception.
I find it interesting how quickly this idea is becoming the current scientific paradigm. 20 years ago it was only scientists on the fringe, often mocked as crackpots, who favoured such ideas, but now it seems they're coming in from the cold.
And those interstellar gas clouds are cold! (It's ultraviolet radiation that facilitates the chemical reactions that produce the amino acids.)
Thus these compunds should be widespread through space, and be incorporated into planetary systems and comets, meaning that it is likely that life in the universe is the rule rather than the exception.
I find it interesting how quickly this idea is becoming the current scientific paradigm. 20 years ago it was only scientists on the fringe, often mocked as crackpots, who favoured such ideas, but now it seems they're coming in from the cold.
And those interstellar gas clouds are cold! (It's ultraviolet radiation that facilitates the chemical reactions that produce the amino acids.)