4 ms·
That’s definitively helpful thank you. I guess I’m still surprised that this finding is being taken to mean left handed molecules couldn’t have come from astero
by roxolotl 2y ago
That’s definitively helpful thank you. I guess I’m still surprised that this finding is being taken to mean left handed molecules couldn’t have come from asteroids. If anything it seems to me to increase the likelihood of the panspermia hypothesis.
- jcranmer 2y agoThe reason this makes panspermia less likely is that the panspermia hypothesis would prefer to put the point at which all amino acids become L-amino acids before arrival on Earth, whereas the evidence is that the amino acids on this asteroid is before that point.
- roxolotl 2y agoThat makes sense. I’m just thinking statistically though. All we’ve proven is that some asteroids have R-amino acids. If it’s a 50/50 shot you could easily find a dozen R asteroids because it starts to look really bad for it being a 50/50 split. I guess the reason it makes things more likely is because homochirality happens so aggressively that finding right handed molecules at all drastically reduces the odds of left.