🧬 Two new studies show that life’s chemical building blocks can persist—and even form—in very different settings: deep time on Earth and deep space. One team reports that 500-million-year-old trilobite fossils preserve unexpected chemical holdovers, challenging common assumptions about how biological carbon survives across Earth’s history 1. Another group of astronomers reports detecting the organic molecule methanimine in a dense clump of gas and dust linked to a developing star about 554 light-years away 3.
Together, the findings add to origins-of-life research by suggesting that some fossils may preserve chemical clues beyond their mineralized shapes, and that star-forming regions can host organic molecules relevant to prebiotic chemistry 13. Neither study claims it has found life. Instead, they widen the map of where life-adjacent chemistry can be preserved or produced, and they point to clear next steps for geochemistry and astrochemistry follow-up work 13.
Sources
- Scientists Find Key Building Block of Life in 500-Million-Year-Old Fossils [scitechdaily.com] (2026-02-17)
- Astronomers discover chemicals that could seed life in the core of a developing star - Space [google.com] (2026-02-16)
- Astronomers discover chemicals that could seed life in the core of a developing star [space.com] (2026-02-16)
Highlights
- More than mineral snapshots: The trilobite study argues that some iconic fossils may retain meaningful remnants of biological carbon chemistry—not just mineralized form—challenging assumptions about preservation over Earth’s history 1.
- Chemistry in a stellar core: The Space.com report describes methanimine detected throughout a dense gas-and-dust clump at the heart of a developing star system 3.
- Next places to look: The results point to complementary follow-ups—targeted chemical analyses of well-known fossil groups, and broader surveys of organics in star-forming clouds to learn how such compounds survive or arise 13.
