Origins of Water and Organic Molecules in Space4. Greg Brennecka explores the origins of life's ingredients, noting that Earth, Mars, and meteorites are fundamentally made of the same materials, with meteorites delivering complex organic molecules containing carbon. While life needs rock, energy, and water, scientists suspect Earth's water may have settled back after being liberated during the moon-forming impact, but meteorites still contributed significant building blocks in the form of pre-made ingredients like amino acids and nucleotides (adenine, guanine, and uracil) that formed in the outer solar system. Delivered in a "ready to go kit," these components simplify the emergence of life, and Brennecka stresses the need for continued missions to retrieve pristine asteroid samples to better understand our origins.
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