Universe Teeming With Elements of Life [View All]

[G_j]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53110-2004Apr5?language=printer

Universe Teeming With Elements of Life
Favorable Conditions Less Common, Scientists Say After Tantalizing Mars Discoveries

By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 6, 2004; Page A03


MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. -- The building blocks of life pervade the solar system, and probably the universe, locked up in planetary polar ice caps, crouching in the interstices of ancient volcanic rocks, zooming around on comets and meteorites, drifting between galaxies in interstellar space, or wafting gently down in cosmic dust.

"The universe is hard-wired to form a lot of the compounds that make life," says astrophysicist Scott A. Sandford of NASA's Ames Research Center. "But that doesn't mean it's happening. There may be a lot of places where the process gets frustrated, and since we haven't seen it on any planet except our own, it's just a story."

But it is a story that scientists take ever more seriously. This year, especially, the study of possible life forms elsewhere in the universe has taken on a new shine, brightened by the spectacular success of the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity in discovering the first physical evidence that liquid water once rested on the surface of a celestial body other than Earth. Water, a fundamental requirement for life as scientists can imagine it, is known to be ubiquitous in the universe, but actually finding physical evidence of its past presence on Mars has nevertheless had a galvanizing effect.

Last week, 700 scientists and engineers showed up for the Astrobiology Science Conference 2004 at the Ames center, bringing together researchers whose interests ranged from building DNA in the lab to listening for radio signals from intelligent beings far, far away.

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