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COSMIC smog may have seeded life not only on our planet, but in countless other solar systems throughout the Galaxy.

That’s the implication of a new study of meteorites, which reveals that important complex organic molecules survived the formation of our Solar System and were brought to Earth on these rocks. It suggests ours and any other solar systems would have been dusted with this mix of organic ingredients very early on, giving life a head start that could make it common elsewhere. “It makes us more sanguine about finding other habitable planets,” says Max Bernstein of NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California.…

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