IN THE near vacuum of interstellar space, temperatures hover just above absolute zero, where even the wobbling of atoms grinds to a halt. Dotting this empty, frigid world are huge globs of gas and dust grains, so numerous they block out nearly all light. And outside the shelter of these interstellar clouds, bombarding cosmic and ultraviolet rays slash most molecules to shreds.
Millions of light years away, under the sunshine and palm trees of Mountain View, California, in a lab tucked away in the grounds of NASA's Ames Research Center, Lou Allamandola and his colleagues have been recreating that world of extremes. And in doing so, they have uncovered tantalising hints that life may have emerged not from some warm primordial slime on Earth, but on a dust grain in the icy heart of space.
It's long been suspected that comets made the Earth habitable by delivering water and gases, ...
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