A team of scientists has reportedly claimed to have found a protein molecule from a meteorite in outer space. This would be the first-ever protein discovered from beyond our planet Earth.
It was discovered inside various meteorite samples
This protein molecule named hemolithin was found inside to meteorites named Allende and the Acfer 086, which was found in Mexico 1969 and Algeria in 1990.
According to these new findings, hemolithin could actually give researchers some clues to try and study how life on our planet originated, which is now accepted for publication in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences. These meteorites are basically space rocks that came from billions of years ago that all fell from the earth.
They used a series of small sanitized drills
Julie McGeoch and her colleagues at Harvard University used sanitized drills, which resembles dentistry ones to collect material from the meteorite, which was the Acfer 086 that was found in Algeria. They prepared by mixing powders with liquids that include water chloroform, fired a laser at these samples so it would turn into gases that are made easier to analyze. This process is called mass spectrometry.
As they closely examined these gases, they have found a combo of amino acids and other atoms which they have said to be the first extraterrestrial protein. Amino acids are well known to be organic compounds that act as building blocks of life and that they can form on meteors and other space rocks, and the process of looking for organic compounds in said meteorites on our planer is overwhelmingly difficult. In 2012, NASA had discovered amino acids in carbonaceous meteorites and another on in 2017 in the Murchison meteorite.
As for the Allende that was found in Mexico, according to the study, the protein molecule contained elements of Iron and Lithium. When they exhibited modeling to see what was going on, the researchers found that glycine was not isolated, but it was part of a protein.
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There are still a lot of steps needed to take for this research. Scientists can use spectrum and modeling software to replicate or create similar spectra which could actually help know whether they are looking at a protein or a different kind of polymer all in all. Some other techniques could also be used on other various kinds of meteorites in which amino acids can be found and find out if similar structures can be seen.
Though, they also noted that there is a possibility that what they found might not actually be protein and that it is also possible that their findings on this research are actually a polymer which are a broad class of molecules of which protein is only one part of it.
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