The extraterrestrial search for our own chemical origins.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 37749087.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-41009-y and PMC identifier 10520022.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
The study of Prebiotic Chemistry, and the closely related study of Astrobiology, is ultimately the study of our own point(s) of origin. Aiming to answer the questions of how, when, and where did the building blocks of life—i.e. biologically relevant organic molecules—form? With the imminent analysis of samples successfully returned from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu, and continuing discoveries from the Ryugu asteroid samples, the answers to some of these questions may be in sight.