Whether or not you believe in life outside of our solar system, the fact that we are all here means that the stuff we're made of must have come from somewhere. After studying meteorites and discovering ready-made components of DNA present, NASA has concluded that the building blocks of life as we know it may have crashed down on Earth from above.
Researchers at the Goddard Space Flight Center discovered portions of DNA on chunks of crashed space rock in both Antarctica and Australia. The extraterrestrial visitors contained various types of nucleobases, which are thought to be essential in the creation of DNA, and life in general. The scientists were able to isolate the compounds and prove that they weren't created here on Earth. This was particularly important, as critics often cite contamination as the reason for these compounds appearing on meteorites that have been studied in the past.
The team also concluded that certain space rocks — depending on their makeup and speed — work like manufacturing facilities for these biological precursors. The implications of the discovery are far-reaching, and suggest that humanity may owe its existence to a well-placed meteorite in the early days of the Earth, and that without it the planet might be a rocky, watery wasteland