Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) contains the genetic instructions for all known living things. And scientists at US space agency NASA have created an “alien” form of DNA. This DNA could lead breakthroughs in understanding what alien life could resemble.
The NASA discovery suggests there might be unimagined forms of DNA-based life as we know it on Earth.
This work will help us to develop effective instruments and experiments to expand the scope of what we look for
NASA's Lori Glaze
And alien life on other worlds might be built using different molecular systems of the kind the NASA scientists have synthesised, they have suggested.
The new molecular system will allow scientists searching for alien life to recalibrate what exactly they are actually looking for and where it could exist.
DNA is a complex double helix-shaped molecule stored and then transmitting the genetic information that makes us who we are.
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NASA: Scientists at the US space agency have synthesised an “alien” form of DNA (Image: Getty)
NASA: The DNA discovery revolutionises our understanding of what extraterrestrial life may resemble (Image: Indiana University School of Medicine)
This data is passed from generation to generation in every living thing on Earth, allowing life to continue.
DNA is constructed of four different ingredients, known as nucleotides and are common across all life on our planet.
But DNA could likely vary significantly elsewhere in the universe, the NASA study has shown.
Imagining forms of life that might use different structures – and developing ways of detecting them – is a central part of NASA’s work.
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And this week’s announcement is a huge breakthrough, as the study has has created such a molecule.
Lori Glaze, acting director of
