Key Component of Earth Life Found in Comet

By Harry Kimball,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 18, 2009 2:47 PM CDT
Key Component of Earth Life Found in Comet
Comet Lulin streaks across the early morning sky.   (AP Photo)

An amino acid necessary to the construction of proteins, and therefore life on Earth, has been found in a comet that passes through our solar system, Space.com reports. Glycine was found in samples picked up by a NASA spacecraft in 2004. The discovery suggests that life’s building blocks could have been “delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts,” a researcher says. (More comet stories.)

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