he basic molecules of life are scattered through the universe, collecting in faraway galactic clouds, on passing comets and asteroids, and on the planets here in our solar system. But scientists still don’t know how these molecules came to be, or how they originally came together to form life. Now, for the first time ever, astronomers have found some of the basic compounds necessary to build organic molecules and proteins found in DNA within the inner regions of a planet-forming disk. “We see prebiotic organic molecules in comets and the gas giant planets in our own solar system and wonder,...