Stardust Supernovae And The Molecules Of Life

Download or read book Stardust, Supernovae and the Molecules of Life written by Richard Boyd and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-12-15 with total page 223 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Where were the amino acids, the molecules of life, created: perhaps in a lightning storm in the early Earth, or perhaps elsewhere in the cosmos? This book argues that at least some of them must have been produced in the cosmos, and that the fact that the Earthly amino acids have a specific handedness provides an important clue for that explanation. The book discusses several models that purport to explain the handedness, ultimately proposing a new explanation that involves cosmic processing of the amino acids produced in space. The book provides a tour for laypersons that includes a definition of life, the Big Bang, stellar nucleosynthesis, the electromagnetic spectrum, molecules, and supernovae and the particles they produce.