Far Out: We Might All Be Aliens

Well, this might explain some people.

GENETIC material from outer space found in a meteorite in Australia may well have played a key role in the origin of life on earth, according to a study to be published on Sunday.
European and US scientists have proved for the first time two bits of genetic coding, called nucleobases, contained in the meteor fragment, are truly extraterrestrial.

Previous studies had suggested the space rocks, which hit earth about 40 years ago, might have been contaminated upon impact.

Both of the molecules identified, uracil and xanthine, "are present in our DNA and RNA," said lead author Zita Martins, a researcher at Imperial College London.

RNA, or ribonucleic acid, is another key part of the genetic coding that makes up our bodies.

These molecules would also have been essential to the still-mysterious alchemy that somehow gave rise, about four billion years ago, to life itself.

"We know that meteorites very similar to the Murchison meteorite, which is the one we analysed, were delivering the building blocks of life to earth 3.8 to 4.5 billion years ago," Martins said.

Competing theories suggest nucleobases were synthesised closer to home, but Martins said the atmospheric conditions of early earth would have rendered that process difficult or impossible.

A team of European and US scientists showed the two types of molecules in the Australian meteorite contained a heavy form of carbon - carbon 13 - which could only have been formed in space.

Maybe this has something to do with that carbon footprint nonsense.

In other space news, it was reported the space shuttle Discovery had an interesting sighting.

ASTRONAUTS on the space shuttle Discovery spotted an unidentified object floating behind the craft, as well as a bump on the shuttle rudder, the US space agency said today.
"After completing a standard day-before-landing test of the shuttle steering jets, the crew indicated they had seen a one-foot to 1.5 foot (0.46m)-foot-long rectangular object floating away from the shuttle from behind the rear portion of the right wing," NASA said in a statement a day before the shuttle's scheduled landing.