Scientists Build Gun to Mimic Meteorite Crash

Recreating how the seeds of life might have survived aboard an ancient meteorite that crashed to Earth is no small feat, but scientists have begun doing just that in a recent lab experiment. The project could help indicate whether life on Earth got its start from alien organic material that hitched a ride aboard space rocks.

Perhaps one of the likeliest building blocks of primordial life on Earth came in the form of amino acids, which are the basic components of proteins. And so a team of U.S. and European researchers focused on trying to replicate how well amino acids would fare when a meteorite slams into the ground.

"This study is the first which tested amino acid quantities similar to those found in real meteorites," said Marylene Bertrand, a biophysicist funded by the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France and lead author of the work published in the December issue of the journal Astrobiology.

More than 70 different amino acids have been found in meteorites that fell to Earth. Past studies have tested the survivability of many amino acids, but did not try to replicate the concentrations of organic molecules found in actual meteorites.

Bertrand's group also took the new step of testing the amino acids embedded inside saponite, a clay material found in carbonaceous chondrite meteorites that represents a possible signature of water.

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