NASA announced Monday that their researchers have found the strongest evidence yet that the components of DNA can be made in space. “People have been discovering components of DNA in meteorites since the 1960’s, but researchers were unsure whether they were really created in space or if instead they came from contamination by terrestrial life,” said Dr. Michael Callahan, lead author on a NASA-funded study just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. “For the first time, we have three lines of evidence that together give us confidence these DNA building blocks actually were created in space.”

One way to read Callahan’s statement is the way that the Daily Mail did. “We could be aliens after all, claims Nasa study looking at meteorites from outer space,” reads the British tabloid headline. However, the new knowledge about our maybe-extraterrestrial origins will surely shed new light on earlier research into whether or not meteorites will lead the way to discovering alien life. Past research has indicated that other building blocks of life—amino acids and nucleobases mentioned in the latest NASA study—exist in meteorites, but scientists have always argued over whether these building blocks in fact came from the meteorites themselves or are in fact a result of earthly contamination, despite not always looking much like earthly building blocks.

One such case made international headlines in 1996 when scientists discovered showed bacteria-like structure on a meteorite discovered in Antarctica. Now known as ALH84001, the meteorite is thought to have come from Mars. The news that the rock contained signs of ancient life was big enough that Bill Clinton gave an address on White House’s South Lawn commending the scientists’ discovery.  “Even as it promises answers to some of our oldest questions, it poses still others even more fundamental.”

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