NASA Ames reproduces the building blocks of life in laboratory

NASA scientists studying the origin of life have reproduced uracil, cytosine, and thymine, three key components of our hereditary material, in the laboratory. They discovered that an ice sample containing pyrimidine exposed ...

The quantum secret to alcohol reactions in space

Chemists have discovered that an 'impossible' reaction at cold temperatures actually occurs with vigour, which could change our understanding of how alcohols are formed and destroyed in space.

Image: The magnetic field along the galactic plane

While the pastel tones and fine texture of this image may bring to mind brush strokes on an artist's canvas, they are in fact a visualisation of data from ESA's Planck satellite. The image portrays the interaction between ...

Building blocks of life found around young star

(Phys.org)—A team of astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) has spotted sugar molecules in the gas surrounding a young Sun-like star. This is the first time sugar been found in space around ...

Coherent interstellar magnetic field detected

Magnetic fields are the essential, but often "secret" ingredients of the interstellar medium and the process of making stars. The secrecy shrouding interstellar magnetic fields can be attributed to the lack of experimental ...

The rate of star formation

(PhysOrg.com) -- New stars continue to appear in the night sky, as the gas and dust in giant interstellar clouds gradually coalesces under the influence of gravity until nuclear burning begins.

Taking quantum control of life's building blocks

Life (as we know it) is based on carbon. Despite its ubiquity, this important element still holds plenty of secrets, on earth and in the heavens above us. For example, astrophysicists like Columbia's Daniel Wolf Savin who ...

Old astronomic riddle on the way to be solved

Scientists at the University of Basel were able to identify for the first time a molecule responsible for the absorption of starlight in space: the positively charged buckminsterfullerene. Their results have been published ...

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