The researchers, led by Sandra Pizzarello, from Arizona State University (USA), collected dust from the meteorite Grave Nunataks 95229 (found in 1995) and treated it with water at high temperature and pressure. In this way, they verified that it emitted ammonium (NH4), an important precursor of complex biological molecules such as amino acids and DNA, into the surrounding water. They then analyzed the nitrogen atoms within the ammonium and determined that the atomic isotope did not correspond to those discovered on Earth today, suggesting that the ammonia did not come from ground contamination.
"Since meteorites and comets have reached Earth since it was formed, the exogenous influx of these bodies was able to provide the organic material necessary for life to emerge," the authors conclude in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ( PNAS ). .
