Dying carbon stars - source of material for our DNA?

NGC 2264, rich in molecular clouds and star dust, photograph from the Wide Field Imager (67 megapixels) telescope at the European Southern Observatory in La Silla

We owe our lives to the stars. All the materials of which the Earth is made and ourselves are, in fact, stellar material. But researchers from the National Laboratory. Lawrence at Berkeley and the University of Hawaii decided to test another theory. And what if the nucleic acids themselves, that is, the material from our DNA and RNA, also have a stellar origin?

The Astrophysical Journal published the experimental results, which for the first time prove that the space around the dying carbon stars is an ideal place to create biological nitrogen-containing molecules, writes Forbes.

A group of scientists has recreated the conditions that exist in the circumstellar space and which can provide enough energy for such a process.
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In the experiment, the researchers pumped the vessel, heated to 700 ° K, with a mixture of acetylene (C ₂ H ₂ ) and nitrogen-carbon gas. The vessel was then irradiated with radiation from the Advanced Light Source (ALS) at the Berkeley lab. As a result, complex nitrogen-containing ring molecules, quinoline and isoquinoline, were formed.

Now scientists are confident that if carbon stars are formed, these key organic compounds may form. Subsequently, they can be pushed into interstellar space and travel under the influence of stellar winds.

Unfortunately, it is very difficult to determine the presence of these organic molecules in space, because the molecules have a complex structure. It is almost impossible to detect them with radio astronomy. The only alternative is the sounding of comets and meteorites.

Theoretically, if such molecules once formed in the nearest stellar systems, then they could get to us on Earth. Scientists believe that nucleic acids from interstellar space could penetrate into the bodies of meteorites and survive a space trip.

Thus, another indirect evidence of the cosmic origin of DNA and RNA has been obtained. Meanwhile, the main scientific theory is the formation of nucleic acids in the Earth’s ocean.

The authors of scientific work believe that the formation of glycerol in the ocean is unlikely, since this process requires compliance with a number of conditions. It cannot go at low or high acidity, as well as in the presence of calcium or magnesium salts, which, although in low concentration, were on Earth. At the same time, previous experiments convincingly proved that precursors like glycerin and other amino acids could easily form in interstellar ice.