Interstellar Space Contains Essential Amino Acid for Humans

Astronomers have discovered the amino acid tryptophan, one of the 20 essential for humans, in the Perseus Molecular Complex, a star-forming region 1,000 light-years from Earth. The discovery was made using data from the now-retired Spitzer telescope, which observed the IC348 region where about 400 stars have formed. The findings suggest that the building blocks of proteins are widely present in the gas from which stars and planets form, and may play a role in the chemistry of planetary systems.