Washington, May 05: Rocks from an asteroid, which fell to Earth on 28 September 1969 landing on the outskirts of the village of Murchison in Victoria, Australia, have been shown to power the synthesis of life''s essential chemicals.

Tests have showed that the rock was laced with amino acids and some of the chemicals found in our genetic material, thus hinting that the molecules life needed to get started could have been produced in space, before dropping to Earth, reports New Scientist.

Raffaele Saladino of the University of Tuscia in Viterbo, Italy, and colleagues knew that that a simple chemical present in space, called formamide, can be transformed into many biomolecules, so they used that as their starting point.

For the test they obtained 1 gram of the Murchison meteorite, ground it to powder and removed all the organic molecules, leaving just the mineral.

They mixed this with formamide and heated it to 140 degree Celsius for 48 hours. The reaction produced nucleic acids - essential building blocks of DNA and RNA - as well as the amino acid glycine, carboxylic acids and a precursor to sugar.

Hence suggesting that the meteorite''s parent asteroid was a chemical factory, said Saladino.

The ability to produce a range of essential molecules sets the meteorite mineral apart from Earth minerals, said Mark Sephton of Imperial College London.

On Earth, the formation of each biomolecule tends to be catalysed by a different mineral, meaning they end up separated and less likely to form life.

The study has been published in the Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres. (ANI)