How do the confirmed extraterrestrial nucleobases differ in significance from amino acids previously found in meteorites?
Answer
Amino acids confirm starting points for metabolism, while nucleobases address the information carrier for heredity.
Amino acids confirm that the starting points for metabolism were cosmic; the discovery of nucleobases like uracil addresses the informational component—the 'letters' of the genetic alphabet—which was hypothesized to be harder to assemble naturally.
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