The Murchison meteorite contains amino acids SBS Eclectic Images/Alamy
Radioactive meteorites may have helped create the building blocks of life a few million years after the solar system was formed.
Amino acids are molecules that combine to form proteins, making them essential for life as we know it. They have been found on carbonaceous chondrites, a type of radioactive meteorite, leading some to postulate that the parent bodies that spawned these space rocks may have played a role in the origins of life.
“The amino acids produced in meteorite parent bodies would be…
