Sydney Scientists Recreate Cosmic Dust to Probe Life’s Origins

Scientists say cosmic dust may hold clues to how life began on Earth.
University of Sydney researcher Linda Losurdo has recreated cosmic dust in a laboratory from scratch.
Cosmic dust forms around dying stars and later reaches Earth as meteorites.
The dust contains CHON molecules, key chemical building blocks of life.
Losurdo used plasma physics to mimic star-like conditions inside a vacuum tube.
The artificial dust matches infrared signatures seen in real meteorites.
Researchers hope the work explains how organic matter arrived on early Earth.
The study appears in the Astrophysical Journal of the American Astronomical Society.