Scouted: Universe Teeming with Elements of Life

[Tom Beck]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A53110-2004Apr5.html

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.



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Tom Beck

my LiveJournal: http://www.livejournal.com/users/tomfodw/

"I always knew I'd see the first man on the Moon. I never thought I'd  
see the last." - Dr. Jerry Pournelle

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