We often tend to assume that we know all there is to know about our world. When I was in my twenties, I worked with a secretary in her seventies who lived in a retirement village. She once told me that a friend of hers had said he thought young people must be discouraged because there was nothing new left to discover. Without hesitation, I rattled off a list of things right off the top of my head that hadn’t yet been unraveled, including how to cure cancer and all the mysteries of black holes. I finished with “the only thing we’ve really learned is how little we know.”
I still feel that way, and it’s a thrill for me each time a major new scientific discovery hits the news. May 10, EarthSky.com carried an article by Deanna Conners highlighting the “Top 10 New Species of 2016.”
Hold the phone. Not all the new species, just the top ten. Scientists estimate there are over ten million distinct species on earth, of which only about two million have been identified and cataloged. This year’s top ten include a bizarre looking fish, a sea dragon, and a new species of pre-human hominid. Intrigued? Visit earthsky.com for the details.
Where did this incredible explosion of life come from? Certainly, the perfect position of our planet in relation to the sun and the abundant presence of water enabled the propagation and differentiation of species. But scientists have for some time debated the possibility that our planet’s water, and even the building blocks of life itself, were delivered to us by a comet or asteroid.
May 27, The European Space Agency announced that it’s Rosetta Spacecraft, which has been studying the Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko for the past two years, found glycine and phosphorus on the comet. Glycine is one of the amino acids considered a building block of life, and phosphorus is a key component in DNA and cells. In addition to glycine, researchers found other organic molecules that could be precursors to the formation of glycine.
So, if life on earth didn’t begin here, where did it originate? Where in the galaxy is planet (or comet) zero?
