How asteroid dust helped us prove life's raw ingredients can evolve in outer space

By Queenie Hoi Shan Chan, Lecturer in Earth Sciences, Royal Holloway

Scientists have long known that certain ingredients are needed to support life, especially water and key organic chemicals like carbon. In recent years, both ingredients have been found on giant asteroids and other celestial bodies.

But, until now, no study had delivered conclusive evidence, based on extraterrestrial samples, to show how and when organic matter was made on the rocks that gravity flings around our solar system.

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