Have you ever looked at humans and thought about how strange and alien we look? You may correct, we may be aliens in a way.
Scientists from Europe and the US have discovered that two types of genetic coding, called nucleobases, found in a meteorite that hit Earth 40 years ago are truly extraterrestrial. The meteorite, which was found in Australia, contained uracil and xanthine, both of which are present in DNA and RNA. The scientists showed that the two types of molecules in the meteorite contained a heavy form of carbon, carbon 13, which could only have been formed in space. The discovery suggests that early life may have adopted nucleobases from meteoric fragments for use in genetic coding, enabling them to pass on their successful features to subsequent generations. The study provides evidence that nucleobases, the compounds that encode genetic information in DNA, could have originally had an extraterrestrial origin, and that meteorites could have been responsible for delivering the basis of life’s genetic code to Earth[1][2].
Citations:
[1] https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2022/april/meteorites-could-have-brought-dna-precursors-earth.html
[2] https://www.smh.com.au/world/we-may-all-be-space-aliens-study-20080614-2qfm.html
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murchison_meteorite
[4] https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1907169116
[5] https://www.sciencenews.org/article/all-of-the-bases-in-dna-and-rna-have-now-been-found-in-meteorites
The image of a DNA shaped nebula was captured by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.
