Challenging long-held assumptions, Aarhus University researchers have demonstrated that the protein building blocks essential for life as we know it can form readily in space. This discovery, appearing in Nature Astronomy, significantly raises the statistical probability of finding extraterrestrial life.

In a modern laboratory at Aarhus University and at an international European facility in Hungary (HUN-REN Atomki), researchers Sergio Ioppolo and Alfred Thomas Hopkinson conduct pioneering experiments. Within a small chamber, the two scientists have mimicked the environment found in giant dust clouds thousands of light-years away. This is no easy feat.

The temperature in these regions is a freezing −260° C. There is almost no pressure, meaning the researchers must constantly pump out gas particles to maintain an ultra-high vacuum. They are simulating these conditions to observe how the remaining particles react to radiation, exactly as they would in a real interstellar environment.