Looking for biosignatures across the solar system requires looking for asymmetry. Amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, are famously either left-handed (L) or right-handed (D). We know abiotic processes (i.e. those that create amino acids but dont involve life) create a 5050 mixture of the two types, which is called a racemic mixture. But life as we know it almost exclusively relies on left-handed amino acids to fold proteins and right-handed ones to construct nucleic acids. So if we fin...
Looking for biosignatures across the solar system requires looking for asymmetry. Amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, are famously either left-handed (L) or right-handed (D). We know abiotic processes (i.e. those that create amino acids but dont involve life) create a 5050 mixture of the two types, which is called a racemic mixture. But life as we know it almost exclusively relies on left-handed amino acids to fold proteins and right-handed ones to construct nucleic acids. So if we fin...
Share this Article
Recommended