NASA: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

  1. Content with the tag: “amino acids

  2. A search for primordial water from deep in the Earth's mantle

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1, 4.1

    A Self-Perpetuating Catalyst for the Production of Organics in Protostellar Nebulae

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1, 3.1

    Acquisition and Installation of a new Cameca ims 1280 ion microprobe

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES:

    Advancing Techniques for in situ Analysis of Complex Organics

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.2, 7.1

    Application of U-tube and fiber-optic distributed temperature sensor to characterize the chemical and physical properties of a deep permafrost and sub-permafrost environment at High Lake, Nunavut, Canada.

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.1, 5.2, 5.3, 7.1

    Astrobiology Sample Analysis Program (ASAP)

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES:

    Biological potential of Mars

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.1, 3.1

    Biosignatures in chemosynthetic and photosynthetic systems

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.1, 4.1, 5.1, 5.2, 6.1, 7.1, 7.2

    Breakdown of methane due to electric discharge: A Laboratory Investigation with Relevance to Mars

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.1

    Chemical Models of Nebular Processes

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1

    Composition of Parent Volatiles in Comets: Oxidized Carbon

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES:

    Current Status and Future Bioastronomy with the Large Millimeter Telescope

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1

    Early Metabolic Pathways

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2, 3

    Early Metabolic Pathways

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.2, 3.4

    Fingerprinting Late Additions to the Earth and Moon via the Study of Highly Siderophile Elements in Lunar Impact Melt Rocks

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1

    Formation and Detection of Hot-Earth Objects in Systems with Close-in Jupiters

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1, 1.2

    Formation of Planetesimals in a Dynamically Evolving Nebula

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1

    Genes that regulate photosymbiotic relationships

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2

    Habitable Planets

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1, 1.2, 2.1, 4.3

    Icelandic subglacial lakes

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.1, 4.1, 5.3, 6.2

    Interplanetary Pioneers

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 5.3, 6.2

    Microbial Communities and Activities in the Deep Marine Subsurface

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 5.1, 5.3, 6.1, 6.2

    Modeling grain surface reaction pathways for large organic molecules

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1

    Organic and Inorganic Acids from Ion-irradiated Ices

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.2, 3.1, 7.1

    Origin and Evolution of Organics

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1, 2.1, 3.1

    Origin and Evolution of Organics in Planetary Systems

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1, 3.1, 3.2

    Origin of Irregular Satellites

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1

    Prebiotic Organics from Space

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 3.4, 4.3, 7.1, 7.2

    Protist diversity in extreme environments

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 6, 7

    Recovery of comet 85P/Boethin for the Deep Impact Extended Mission

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.2

    Research Activities in the Astrobiology Analytical Laboratory

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1, 2.1, 2.2, 3.1, 7.1

    Sediment-buried basement deep biosphere

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.1, 3.3, 4.1, 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 6.1, 6.2

    Societal and Philosophical Aspects of Astrobiology

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 18

    Studies in Planetary Formation and Evolution

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 11, 12, 8, 9

    Studies of Organic Matter and Water in Meteorites

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1, 11, 8, 9

    The Main Belt distribution of basaltic asteroids

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.2

    THE VYSOS PROJECT

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1.2

    Ultra-violet processing of ices in the Rosette Nebula

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 3.1

    Understanding the Microbial Ecology of Geologically-based Chemolithoautotrophic Communities

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 2.1, 4.1

    Biological Studies of Hydrothermal Systems

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 6, 7

    Mars Meteorite Focus Group (Pending)

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 8

    Studies of Organic Matter and Water in Meteorites

    ROADMAP OBJECTIVES: 1, 11, 8, 9
  3. NASA Researchers Make First Discovery of Life's Building Block in Comet


    This is an artist's concept of particle hits on the aerogel collection grid. The greenish areas represent the aerogel. Hits are the light green teardrop-shaped areas. Particles are represented by dots at the tips of the teardrops. Credit: NASA/JPL

    NASA scientists have discovered glycine, a fundamental building block of life, in samples of comet Wild 2 returned by NASA’s Stardust spacecraft.

    “Glycine is an amino acid used by living organisms to make proteins, and this is the first time an amino acid has been found in a comet,” said Dr. Jamie Elsila of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “Our discovery supports the theory that some of life’s ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts.”

    Elsila is the lead author of a paper...

    Read More

    Source: [Link]

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  4. Meteorites a Rich Source for Primordial Soup


    Primordial Soup

    Scientists from NAI’s Carnegie Institution of Washington Team have a new paper in Meteoritics and Planetary Science detailing their discovery of amino acids in two meteorites at concentrations ten times higher than levels previously measured in other similar meteorites. The result suggests that the early solar system was far richer in the organic building blocks of life than scientists had thought, and that fallout from space may have spiked Earth’s primordial broth. Click here to download the paper.

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  5. Mineral Surfaces and Life


    Robert Hazen, from NAI’s Carnegie Institution of Washington Team, published his 2005 Presidential Address to the Mineralogical Society of America in this month’s American Mineralogist. The address reviews the role of mineral surfaces on the self-assembly of lipids, the polymerization of amino acids and nucleic acids, and the selective adsorption of organic species, including chiral molecules, onto mineral surfaces.

    Source: [Link]

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  6. Amino Acids Found in Antarctic Meteorites


    Researchers from NAI’s NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Team and their colleagues publish their analysis of two meteorites in the current issue of Meteoritics and Planetary Science. Their study revealed a suite of amino acids present in the meteorites that are not present in the Antarctic ice on which they were found.

    Source: [Link]

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