Mark Swain of NASA, who led the team, said it was a "crucial stepping stone" to characterisingprebiotic molecule on planets where life could exist.

Since that time, amino acids seem to be on the forefront ofprebiotic molecule research, which includes the study of DNA, RNA, proteinoids (Sidney Fox), ribozymes (Thomas Cech & Sidney Airman), and pre-RNA molecules such as peptide nucleic acid (Peter E.

This is the first ever detection of thisprebiotic molecule towards solar-type protostars, the sort from which our Solar System evolved.

Various research organisations associated with NASA will study how water is trapped on the Moon despite it having no atmosphere for protection, the process of space weathering, or how exposure to space affects the geology of the Moon, howprebiotic molecules such as amino acids are preserved within the lunar soil, and estimate the age of the samples by studying the amount of noble gases in them.

These minerals are important pre concentrating agents forprebiotic molecules [12-14].

Preliminary work by Ranjan and his collaborators suggest that sulfidic anions would have sped up the chemical reactions required to convert very simpleprebiotic molecules into RNA, a genetic building block of life.

In research presented at the Meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society in London, astronomers discussed the dusty, stormy atmospheres of exoplanets and brown dwarfs and how they could be hothouses for the formation ofprebiotic molecules.

"Many of the interstellar molecules discovered to date are the same kinds detected in laboratory experiments specifically designed to synthesizeprebiotic molecules. This fact suggests a universal prebiotic chemistry," said Jan M.

Yet theseprebiotic molecules rarely combine into chains of more than 10 to 20 links.