First Organic Molecules Found on Alien World

[w1z4rd]

"The detection of planet HD 189733b is in some ways just another small victory for extra-solar planetary science. It is too hot for there to be anything 'alive'. Just the same, somewhere on the planet are trace amounts of the gas methane. The fact that the element was detected at all offers hope for understanding future discoveries of Earth-like worlds, says NewScientistSpace. Researchers from Caltech and University College London used the Hubble Space Telescope to peer at the planet and examined spectral signature of starlight filtered by the planet's atmosphere, to identify different chemicals. 'The authors suggest that some ill-understood chemical process might be responsible, either concentrating the methane in cooler parts of the atmosphere, or generating extra methane directly. Alternatively, the methane might simply mean that the planet happens to be very rich in carbon.'"

http://space.newscientist.com/artic...ules-found-on-alien-world-for-first-time.html

 

[nauseous_monkey]

Not surprizing to find organic molecules. We can even create Amino-Acids in a lab... so in other words organic molecules must exist throughout the universe without problem.

 

[PostmanPot]

Thanks for this.

More eye-opening stuff for those who favour creation etc.

 

[Moederloos]

Thanks for this.

More eye-opening stuff for those who favour creation etc.

Do not see why.
The presence of organic molecules on a far off planet neither makes nor breaks a case for evolution vs creationism.

Or did you maybe mean something else by "creation"?

 

[cerebus]

Sorry to sound ignorant but what is meant by 'organic molecules' here? I mean...methane in itself is inorganic right, so is it just molecules that could be the building blocks of life or actual generative organisms?

 

[cyghost]

Natural Gas

It's got carbon! And it releases water and carbon dioxide when burning with oxygen.

 

[Praeses]

Sorry to sound ignorant but what is meant by 'organic molecules' here? I mean...methane in itself is inorganic right, so is it just molecules that could be the building blocks of life or actual generative organisms?

WordWeb:
Organic compound - Any compound of carbon and another element or a radical

In this case carbon with hydrogen (CH4) -> Hydrocarbon

For interest's sake: Some bacteria produce methane (they use CO2 IIRC) (methanogens) while others live off methane (methanotrophs)

Thanks for the post, w1z4rd

 

[cerebus]

Right ya thanks

 

[Highflyer_GP]

For interest's sake: Some bacteria produce methane (they use CO2 IIRC) (methanogens)

And for some odd reason they normally choose to do so in crowded elevators

 

[Praeses]

And for some odd reason they normally choose to do so in crowded elevators

 

[AutoX]

And for some odd reason they normally choose to do so in crowded elevators

and airport waiting areas....

 

[nauseous_monkey]

In terms of disproving creationalists it is quite a significant discovery but is dwarfed by an experiment done years ago.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/do53am.html

In a nutshell this is how it works...

Methane is a basic Carbohydrate which will eventually turn into more complicated moleculed like Glucose and later Amino Acids naturally... although we have not really yet discovered Amino Acids on other planets. Amino Acids are very important because it is a very complicated molecule which can be said to be the basis of creationalist mambo jambo.

Amino Acids are the constituents of Proteins you see and Proteins are the building blocks of living creatures like you and me or the bacteria between the keys on your keyboard.

So Methane is very significant to discover... it makes us hopeful to find more complicated molecules soon. It means that the planet we discover on has the ability to harbour life.

Okay so the guy that discovered AMino Acids in a lab did so by simply recreating a pre-historic earth and then sending lighting (or electricity current) through it.... eventually he discovered that he had created Amino Acids.... SOmething seemingly imposible to create as it has all the traits of 'devine design' so creationalist just seem to ignore that to this day

 

[kronoSX]

I never understood how they can theorize these situations from infinite miles away.

 

[Teleological]

Okay so the guy that discovered AMino Acids in a lab did so by simply recreating a pre-historic earth and then sending lighting (or electricity current) through it.... eventually he discovered that he had created Amino Acids.... SOmething seemingly imposible to create as it has all the traits of 'devine design' so creationalist just seem to ignore that to this day

Or is it that SDL proponents are expecting to much (looking too deep into the beer glass) from mere amino acids? BTW, that is not how amino acid were discovered, Muller and Urey tried to mimic what they thought might be the most plausible conditions of the atmosphere (i.e. a reducing atmosphere) +-4 billion years ago. The reaction ran, and they found traces of the simplest amino acids.

The concentration of the most abundant amino acids formed in the Muller-Urey experiments (glycine and alanine) is less than 2%, too low for any polymerization to occur. Amino acids do not randomly polymerize in water and generally the opposite is observable. I.e. the peptide bonds break down easier than being made. Only 13-14 of the 20-23 biologically relevant amino acids have even a remotely plausible prebiotic synthesis. The byproducts of these reactions are also highly reactive. E.g. formaldehyde and HCN.

Formaldehyde and HCN are important precursors for the RNA world hypothesis. But the RNA world is highly implausible...

Abiogenesis: RNA world.
Here is an interesting blog entry: The RNA world.

Here is what I can gather. For RNA to form in the prebiotic world, ribose and nucleotides (purines and pyrimidines) need to have a plausible prebiotic synthetic route. Then they have to come together to form beta-D-ribonucleotides (nucleotides (purine or pyrimidine) linked to ribose at the 1’-position). These beta-D-ribonucleotides then have to be connected to form polymers with phosphodiester bonds (3’ and 5’). If all this happens, an RNA polymer will have to form that is able to catalyze itself, resulting in replication and then selection can take over from there (right).

Ribose synthesis:
For ribose synthesis you need formaldehyde (presumably from Miller-Urey type reactions) as a precursor and a base to catalyze the aldol reactions, reverse Aldol reactions and aldose-ketose isomerizations (formose reaction).
Nucleotide (purines and pyrimidines) synthesis.
HCN (presumably also from Miller-Urey type reactions) is a precursor compound that have been shown to form nucleotides in alkaline solutions.

A few problems with this hypothesis:
1) The formose reaction gives a complex sugar mixture and a lot of the sugars that are formed are broken down in the reaction conditions.
2) The formose reaction does not yield ribose in great yields even with high starting concentration of formaldehyde.
3) Sugars break down relatively easily at pH=7.
4) Reaction yields of nucleotides from HCN is low, even from pure starting materials.
5) HCN-type reactions contain many nitrogenous substances that will react with compounds in the formose reaction and visa versa.
6) From the above one can see that when formaldehyde and nitrogenous substances are present in a mixture, a smorgasbord of compounds can be formed that can react with each other. No law dictates that, of all the possible outcomes of a reaction (e.g. the formose reaction with HCN), the subset of compounds needed for RNA formation will form in any appreciable quantities.
7) If beta-D ribonucleotides form by chance, how are they going to be linked together with phosphodiester bonds? No plausible prebiotic catalyst has been proposed.

Is the RNA world plausible?

In Robert Shapiro’s article “A simpler origin for life”. ((Shapiro (2007) “A simpler origin for life”. Scientific American 296: 24-31) a simpler redox driven metabolism first scenario is discussed whereby hypercycles of reactions form to yield compounds of ever increasing complex compounds that could perhaps catalyze reactions needed for the RNA world. However, no plausible metabolism first models have been proposed as the late Leslie Orgel pointed out in his last article: The Implausibility of Metabolic Cycles on the Prebiotic Earth. Scientists have not found a plausible prebiotic synthesis scenario of any molecule that can give rise to other molecules that are capable to catalyze the synthesis of molecules of its own kind.

So the only conclusion I can make is that at present, research have only shown implausible hypotheses for the origin of simple self-replicating molecules.

Some SDL proponents are even invoking metaphysical multiverses to make it look a little more plausible.

 

[nauseous_monkey]

Or is it that SDL proponents are expecting to much (looking too deep into the beer glass) from mere amino acids? BTW, that is not how amino acid were discovered, Muller and Urey tried to mimic what they thought might be the most plausible conditions of the atmosphere (i.e. a reducing atmosphere) +-4 billion years ago. The reaction ran, and they found traces of the simplest amino acids.

Hey thanks nice post. Just a note I did not say that he discovered Amino Acids... I said he discovered that it is possible to create them in a lab. Amino Acids have been common knowledge long before he created a few in a lab.

Check some models for Amino Acids online and see how complicated even the simpilist of these are... it definitily illustrates that with a few more billion years more complicated amino acids even proteins are possible without devine intervention.

just a note

 

[Teleological]

Check some models for Amino Acids online and see how complicated even the simpilist of these are... it definitily illustrates that with a few more billion years more complicated amino acids even proteins are possible without devine intervention.

just a note

I donno about that. Amino acid synthesis within cells is quite complex and requires a myriad of enzymes and is exquisitely controlled. Adding time to a soup of chemicals wont do it imo. Chemical selectivity, chemical reactivity and chemical stability play a role in the outcome of reactions, adding time will just drive reactions to their stable end, and somehow a plausible prebiotic synthesis reaction is needed for many amino acids without the help of enzymes. Proteins also do not just form. Each amino acid has its tRNA molecule for protein synthesis, which in itself is very complex. Spontaneous polymerization of peptides is another problem.
Also, extended time does not provide an explanatory mechanism for spontaneously generated information carrying polymers. Chance and necessity etc.

 

[nauseous_monkey]

I donno about that. Amino acid synthesis within cells is quite complex and requires a myriad of enzymes and is exquisitely controlled. Adding time to a soup of chemicals wont do it imo. Chemical selectivity, chemical reactivity and chemical stability play a role in the outcome of reactions, adding time will just drive reactions to their stable end, and somehow a plausible prebiotic synthesis reaction is needed for many amino acids without the help of enzymes. Proteins also do not just form. Each amino acid has its tRNA molecule for protein synthesis, which in itself is very complex. Spontaneous polymerization of peptides is another problem.
Also, extended time does not provide an explanatory mechanism for spontaneously generated information carrying polymers. Chance and necessity etc.

Firstly: Get the Definition of Enzyme

Any of numerous proteins or conjugated proteins produced by living organisms and functioning as biochemical catalysts.

In other words enzymes merely function as catalysts of reactions which would have already happened but are merely happening faster due to the catalytic effect.

Enzymes are thus not crucial to any kind of evolution of organic molecules.

Secondly: Enzymes are Proteins but can also be other chemical molecules. Thus enzymes exist freely and abundantly in the universe deduced from the fact that proteins can be created naturally and that chemical molecules which can serve as catalysts can also be found throughout the universe.

My 2c for now

 

[w1z4rd]

I donno about that. Amino acid synthesis within cells is quite complex and requires a myriad of enzymes and is exquisitely controlled. Adding time to a soup of chemicals wont do it imo.

Or "imo" is noted, and put where it should be.

 

[nauseous_monkey]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_life

There is some good reading for Teleological and the rest of you guys.

Besides the Miller Experiment in which we yielded some complicated Organic Molecules here are some other aspects on the topic.

Fox's experiments

In the 1950s and 1960s Sidney W. Fox, studied the spontaneous formation of peptide structures under conditions that might plausibly have existed early in Earth's history. He demonstrated that amino acids could spontaneously form small peptides. These amino acids and small peptides could be encouraged to form closed spherical membranes, called microspheres.[26]

Eigen's hypothesis

In the early 1970s the problem of the origin of life was approached by Manfred Eigen and Peter Schuster of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry. They examined the transient stages between the molecular chaos and a self replicating hypercycle in a prebiotic soup.[27]

In a hypercycle, the information storing system (possibly RNA) produces an enzyme, which catalyzes the formation of another information system, in sequence until the product of the last aids in the formation of the first information system.

Wächtershäuser's hypothesis

Another possible answer to this polymerization conundrum was provided in 1980s by Günter Wächtershäuser, in his iron-sulfur world theory. In this theory, he postulated the evolution of (bio)chemical pathways as fundamentals of the evolution of life. Moreover, he presented a consistent system of tracing today's biochemistry back to ancestral reactions that provide alternative pathways to the synthesis of organic building blocks from simple gaseous compounds.

Those are a few experiments, hypothese and theories but all of them very satisfing to read about.

The question about Organic Molecules is really nothing more than the argument of Creationalism vs. Evolution.

Evolution always wins because it makes more sense and because it is more satisfying as it regularly provides us with more insight into many aspects of Medicine and science which results in cures, treatments and other advances.

The Evolution of Inorganic Molecules to Organic Molecules to Bacteria to other Organisms and to Life as we know it is very fascinating really. And if you knew anything about science back in the day you would realise what a massive impact Miller's experiments had on Science and man's perception of the world.

 

[PostmanPot]

Or "imo" is noted, and put where it should be.