After years of analysis, the spacecraft that flew through a comet and brought its dust back to earth has given us the news we wanted – the building blocks of life, amino acids, are out there in space.

Stardust set off to encounter comet Wild-2 in 1999, returning with its bounty – comet grains trapped in an aerogel – in early 2006. The scientist involved got busy, beavering away to work out what was in the grains, ruling out contamination and trying to assess what molecules existed in space.

At the time of the first swathe of papers, published in Science in December 2006, including this one, there were hints that amine molecules were present. This is a tantalising link to the presence of amino acids, the building blocks of life.

So the latest results from the Stardust team confirms the presence of glycine, an amino acid, in the Stardust data. This was presented at the American Chemical Society meeting currently happening in Washington, DC by Jamie Elsila of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. “Our discovery supports the theory that some of life’s ingredients formed in space and were delivered to Earth long ago by meteorite and comet impacts,” says Elsila (press release).

Now some three years ago I recall talking to an excited Stardust team member, Jason Dworkin also from Goddard. He was pretty sure, although not certain, even then that he was going to see glycine. His caveat at the time was that it wouldn’t be clear whether this was cometary or not.

The news now is that Dworkin, who is on the same team as Elsila, can be happy that he was right. Glycine was not a contaminant, but part of the comet. The consequences of this discovery? Well, the researchers say that this could suggest life, or at least the ingredients to make life, are common, not rare. We are not alone…

This news has caused some press excitement, see Information Week, Christian Science Monitor, LA Times, Examiner (check out that headline).

Image: NASA