Xi Chen

Galileo, legend has it, dropped balls from the Tower of Pisa to prove that heavy and light objects fall equally. This law formed the foundation of Einstein's theory of gravity. Today, scientists have turned an entire space station into such a tower.

Radio telescopes detected emissions from the celestial object G358.93-0.03 MM1 — a hot cocoon inside which a massive star is igniting. Within that glow, lines of glycolamide appeared, a delicate carbon molecule.

For nearly half a century, astronomers have been searching for glycine, the simplest amino acid and one of the fundamental building blocks of proteins, in the interstellar medium.