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Asteroids May Have Brought Sugar to Earth

Posted by timothy on from the sugar-smacks dept.

CBNobi writes: "An article over at space.com reports of sugar-like substances contained in meteorite found on earth. This discovery may support the theory that life on earth was seeded from outer space."

4 of 65 comments (clear)

  1. There seems to be a step missing by pubudu · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't understand how the presence of sugars in asteroids suggests that meteors planted sugars on Earth. If sugars can be created through inorganic processes, where's the argument that such processes were not responsible for the sugars on Earth? If they cannot be so created, then sugars are not the seeds required for life, and so there is no reason to suspect that life was seeded by meteors. I don't find the discussion at the end of the article particularly helpful in this regard.

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    under-paid karma whore

    1. Re:There seems to be a step missing by codexus · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You're right. The basic molecules of life (including sugars) could have been created on earth. The problem is that we are currently unable to explain the process of how that would happen.

      It's then logical to think that maybe, we can't explain it because it didn't happen and instead these molecules came from space. Explaining how they are created in space is also a very important question in order to confirm this "extraterrestrial" origin of the components of life. But this process seems to exist since we find, for example, sugars in meteors

      There's a lot of open questions remaining, and a lot of fascinating subjects to research.

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      True warriors use the Klingon Google
  2. Once again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    Slashdot posts an article by someone else which I had submitted 12 hours previously.

    *sigh*

    I guess only those who have accounts get to post stories

  3. One Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Simply because we know these processes can occur in space, does that mean that they necessarily did not occur on Earth independently?

    It seems the "life on Earth was seeded from space" is possible, but is meaningless speculation at this point since life on Earth could just as easily have originated here independently. What's intriguing about this is not that Earth needed Asteroids for life, but that bodies other than Earth are turning out to have more and more of the prerequisite ingredients.