Chinese Scientists Searching for Origin of Life in Space

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, December 12, 2001

Chinese Scientists Searching for Origin of Life in Space

Chinese scientists are hunting for molecular codes in interstellar space, in an attempt to get an answer to the secret of the origin of life. Eighteen researchers have been working on the project since June this year at an astronomical observatory located on northwest China's Qinghai-Tibet Plateau due to its exceptionally high elevation.

"We have obtained some positive results," said Pei Chunchuan, chief scientist at the Qinghai Station of the Purple Mountain Observatory (PMO) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS),the top research body for natural sciences in the country.

Minor Organic Molecular Lines Detected

The researchers have detected some minor organic molecular lines, which could indicate that life might exist in interstellar space.

Pei explained that if, for example, lines of organic molecules such as amino acids were found, the discovery could mean that stars carried some bigger organic molecules during their formation process.

"These organic molecules could directly evolve into life under suitable conditions," said Pei, who is also a research fellow with the PMO.

Scientists in other countries have also been quite interested in detecting lines of organic molecules in interstellar space, wishing to learn how life came into being. The United States started relevant studies in 1990s.

PMO Qinghai Station

The PMO Qinghai Station, situated in the western part of Qinghai Province, with an elevation of 3,200 meters, is home to the only millimeter-wave radio telescope in China, the diameter of which is 13.7 meters.

The radio telescope's sensitivity in probing molecular codes has been improved fourfold since a self-developed superconductive mixing receiver was installed.

The station is considered the best of its kind in Asia, as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau offers dry weather, high elevation, clearer nights, and fewer radio disturbances. It is also the second-best station of its kind in the world, after the one located in Hawaii, the United States. More than 100 scientists from at home and abroad conduct research at the station every year.

Established in the mid-1980s, the Qinghai Station is mainly designed to do research on the formation and death of stars and planetary nebulae, and to search for interstellar molecular lines.

Chinese scientists have discovered more than 100 water maser sources, one seventh of those which have been found to date. Maser sources, physical characteristics that show up in the process of star formation, serve as important evidence for the study of star formation.

Clues to life's origin in interstellar clouds

A team of US scientists from NASA and Stanford University have created some of the chemicals needed for life, in an environment resembling deep space. The finding, reported in Science (February 19, 1999), could illustrate the origins of life.

The team simulated the conditions of the interstellar clouds of dust and gas. These are debris from previous generations of stars, and form the material from which new planets and stars evolve.

The experiment involved freezing then irradiating the most common carbon-based molecules found in such clouds. Later analysis confirmed the presence of organic molecules which served as the building blocks for life on Earth (quinones, aromatic ketones, alcohols and ethers). For More

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