DNA goo is everywhere

Partial Ingredients for DNA and Protein Found Around Star
For Release: December 20, 2005



NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has discovered some of life's most basic ingredients in the dust swirling around a young star. The ingredients -- gaseous precursors to DNA and protein -- were detected in the star's terrestrial planet zone, a region where rocky planets such as Earth are thought to be born.

The findings represent the first time that these gases, called acetylene and hydrogen cyanide, have been found in a terrestrial planet zone outside of our own.

"This infant system might look a lot like ours did billions of years ago, before life arose on Earth," said Fred Lahuis of Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands and the Dutch space research institute called SRON. Lahuis is lead author of a paper to be published in the Jan. 10 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Lahuis and his colleagues spotted the organic, or carbon-containing, gases around a star called IRS 46. The star is in the Ophiuchus (pronounced OFF-ee-YOO-kuss), or "snake carrier," constellation about 375 light-years from Earth. This constellation harbors a huge cloud of gas and dust in the process of a major stellar baby boom. Like most of the young stars here and elsewhere, IRS 46 is circled by a flat disk of spinning gas and dust that might ultimately clump together to form planets.

When the astronomers probed this star's disk with Spitzer's powerful infrared spectrometer instrument, they were surprised to find the molecular "barcodes" of large amounts of acetylene and hydrogen cyanide gases, as well as carbon dioxide gas. The team observed 100 similar young stars, but only one, IRS 46, showed unambiguous signs of the organic mix.

"The star's disk was oriented in just the right way to allow us to peer into it," said Lahuis.

The Spitzer data also revealed that the organic gases are hot. So hot, in fact, that they are most likely located near the star, about the same distance away as Earth is from our sun.

"The gases are very warm, close to or somewhat above the boiling point of water on Earth," said Dr. Adwin Boogert of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "These high temperatures helped to pinpoint the location of the gases in the disk."

Organic gases such as those found around IRS 46 are found in our own solar system, in the atmospheres of the giant planets and Saturn's moon Titan, and on the icy surfaces of comets. They have also been seen around massive stars by the European Space Agency's Infrared Space Observatory, though these stars are thought to be less likely than sun-like stars to form life-bearing planets.

Here on Earth, the molecules are believed to have arrived billions of years ago, possibly via comets or comet dust that rained down from the sky. Acetylene and hydrogen cyanide link up together in the presence of water to form some of the chemical units of life's most essential compounds, DNA and protein. These chemical units are several of the 20 amino acids that make up protein and one of the four chemical bases that make up DNA.

"If you add hydrogen cyanide, acetylene and water together in a test tube and give them an appropriate surface on which to be concentrated and react, you'll get a slew of organic compounds including amino acids and a DNA purine base called adenine," said Dr. Geoffrey Blake of Caltech, a co-author of the paper. "And now, we can detect these same molecules in the planet zone of a star hundreds of light-years away."

Follow-up observations with the W.M. Keck Telescope atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii confirmed the Spitzer findings and suggested the presence of a wind emerging from the inner region of IRS 46's disk. This wind will blow away debris in the disk, clearing the way for the possible formation of Earth-like planets.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech. JPL is a division of Caltech. Spitzer's infrared spectrograph was built by Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. Its development was led by Dr. Jim Houck of Cornell.

For graphics and more information about Spitzer, visit http://www.spitzer.caltech.edu/spitzer. For more information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit http://www.nasa.gov/home/.


HOwzat. More goodies from "Out there". Soon we creatures on the little blue dot are going to have to commit to a major attitude change.

About time, I say!

God At His Desk

best2005_cosmic_bunny_03
Originally uploaded by Popokiknut.

Whence we came from, stardust as we are, where we are going, one way or another. I'd like to say to Clone science nay-sayers -- we need to change our physical selves -- our bodies as they are, are Earth-bound, and need gravity, air, water, etc. Wouldn't it be easier to explore the universe without lugging all that around? If God didn't want us to explore, we would have never found a way to tamper with it all. Period. Use the brain given to us! Please! Also, we do need to go, oh you people who would we never step into space. Earth is not finite. Neither is the sun. It's time to learn how to high-tail out and find another planet and another solar system. Again we have the tools, we have the imagination. Let's get on with it! Every time we venture out and explore we come back with much more than we ever dreamed. The universe awaits!!! I'd rather see us, going as homo sapiens sapiens than just motes of dust from our exploded existences. We have the stuff. Let's go for it!

About 2 weeks --

The 'Hmmm" Department. Apparently some mega churches are closing Christmas Sunday. No services at all. Doors are closed. Now I'd like to say 'howscum'?? Even if it's NOT Christ's birthday, it's officially that. Some bureaucrats have been smoking too much interference potion. C'mon guys. Please, the human beings have far too much trivia to 'worry about' without adding some more.

Carl Sagan said it right. If you have been tuning into COSMOS running on DISCOVERY channel -- you'd know what I mean. We have far too much at stake to continue fighting over space in our sandbox. Let's call it a rest. Keep your religion to yourself in the best way you know how, and let others practice theirs the best way they know. Put away weapons. Put down arms. Stop committing murder in the name of a God. Our liittle blue marble in space is much too precious and vulnerable and humanity needs to grow up or it will perish.

Hug your mother. If she irritates you, hug her harder. The thorny roses have the best bloom and best perfume.

Stop whining "Why me", "I didn't ask to be born" and other put downs to rail at fate. For one, why not you. You charted for this when you asked for life, and Oh yes you did ask to be born. Most definitely. You don't remember because you aren't supposed to. No cheating!! Live your life, have fun, and stop being a crybaby.

Pain is a given on this planet. There is a lot more of Pain than of anything else. There's a reason for that too. Suck it up!

God answers ALL prayers. Sometimes He says 'no'. Sometimes He says not now. In all answers, he sends you love. He does care.

Death is this world's way of making room. You do not pass into oblivion, your essential being is still present, as is everyone's. Who wants to hang onto a diseased, warn out old carcass anyway?? Rather be 30 years old and flying!

And you will.

Trust me.

Have fun wrapping presents and spreading love --- K

Bambi2

Bambi2
Originally uploaded by Popokiknut.

Good ol Wyoming. Over at Dave's 'little house on the prairie about a mile out of town. The deer come in when it gets cold, apparently. This lady brought her half-grown fawns and it makes it a nice addition to our fauna pics.

Kitty poem

12 Days of Christmas - A Cat's Rendition

On the twelfth day of Christmas my human gave to me:
Twelve bags of catnip!
Eleven tarter Pounce treats,
Ten ornaments hanging,
Nine wads of Kleenex,
Eight peacock feathers,
Seven stolen Q-tips,
Six feathered balls,
Five MILK JUG RINGS!
Four munchy house plants,
Three running faucets,
Two fuzzy mousies,
And a hamste-e-er in a plastic ball!!

Brings back memories for me. Its windy in my state. Hurricane force winds. Gusts up to 100 mph. Yowie. Don't open your coat, you'll be sailed off to Nebraska! Of course *ahem* that's not a blizzard. You gotta have SNOW for that, and so far --the blizzard conditions affect all living creatures shorter than a foot off the ground. That's how high up the 'white out' conditions are with the miniscule bit we've been getting. I should declare equal opportunity things and find poems for dogs and other critters... Pass the Ritz Bits! It's beginning to look like Christmas.

moose & Turtle

moose & Turtle
Originally uploaded by Popokiknut.

"I think this is the business end --" Moose is investigating turtle -- first time for the old dawg. Moose is now in Green Pastures but a beloved dog of my step-daughter-in-law. We are in the midst of jolly season time, and while I predict a lot of us are going to be tight this year, still, Christmas will be Christmas, and by the way --it's silly to be so politically correct as to call them 'holiday trees'. C'mon, the tradition is Christmas Tree!! and before that, pagan holidays so what does it matter?? Golly people can get worked up into a foamy swivet over the darndest thing. Christmas Tree! Get over it! Ol Moose here is more direct and pragmatic of something new within her line of sight. Turtle! Turtle! I think this is her backside!!Yup!!! Yup!!! Seasonal backside?? Who cares. From this end I don't get bitten!