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Sugar found
in Space
That’s not a misprint. Philip R. Jewell of the National Radio Astronomy
Observatory says they have found Glycolaldehyde in a Gas and Dust cloud
called Sagittarius B2. Glycolaldehyde is a simple eight-atom sugar molecule.
Researchers say that Glycolaldehyde can combine with other molecules to
form more-complex sugars, such as ribose, that serve as biological building
blocks.
What is most significant about this is not the strange thought of a sugar
cloud in space, which sounds like a bed time story, but the fact that
this adds more fuel to the debate over life being "seeded" on
earth. There are a number of scientists that believe some of the building
blocks that started life on earth came from outer space already formed.
One argument for the seeding of earth is the fact that all life on earth
is the same. If it were truly a random event then more than one form of
life would have likely started in the primordial soup.
Scientists find amino acids in meteors all the time, another building
block of life. If more building blocks are found then it would make it
more possible for life on earth to have come from outer space.
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