DNA could survive without water in the vacuum of space for hundreds of
thousands of years, researchers in California have suggested. Their discovery
will encourage those who believe life may have originated in space.
Water plays an important role in keeping proteins folded into
three-dimensional structures. But scientists were unsure how DNA would fare
without water, in a vacuum. To test this, Evan Williams and his colleagues from
the University of California at Berkeley placed DNA in evacuated chambers.
Their results suggest that DNA could keep its double-stranded structure at
room temperature in a vacuum for as long as 35 years (Journal of the
American Chemical Society, vol 120, p 9605). “At the very low temperatures
of space, the complexes would survive for a very long time鈥攏early
indefinitely,” says Williams.
