MAGAZINE OF THE SOCIE TY FOR SCIENCE & THE PUBLIC
MAGAZINE OF THE SOCIETY FOR SCIENCE & THE PUBLIC
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To chemists, the universe
is a vast cosmic test tube
Long before the evolution of life began
on Earth, evolution of a different sort
began to prepare the cosmos for life’s
arrival. In this case, the species that
emerged and mutated and spawned
offspring were not organisms, but
molecules.
Once the universe gave birth to stars,
What happened after that was not precisely like the evo-
lution of life, of course, as molecules don’t exactly battle
each other for survival. But some combinations of atoms are
more stable than others. So when primordial atoms inter-
acted under different conditions, only some of the result-
ing molecular species lived long enough to participate in
further reactions. As nature continued to explore the vast
space of chemical possibilities, simple molecules mated to
produce more complicated species, opening the way to even
more possible combinations, ultimately providing the cos-
mos with enough carbon-based molecular complexity to
take chemistry to the next — the bio — level.
Today, scientists from various disciplines — astronomy,
chemistry, biology — are busily studying the molecular
populations occupying deep space, as Science News chemistry writer Rachel Ehrenberg reports in this issue (Page 26).
Space has turned out to be a stellar laboratory for learning
about the chemical history of the universe and how life’s
precursors may have arisen. It’s also a new kind of chemistry lab for gaining insight into novel chemical processes,
since on Earth it’s very difficult to reproduce the expansive
space, low pressures and long reaction times that are available in a cosmic setting.
Molecular species populating space today reflect the
primordial processes of eons ago that made the universe
an interesting place — and that make chemistry an interesting science. Those molecules may also help explain how
it came to be that anyone was around to write about how
interesting they are. In any event, cosmic chemical evolution deserves all the attention scientists are giving it as a
worthy prequel to the earthly bio-evolution that ultimately
led to science itself.
—Tom Siegfried, Editor in Chief
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