English: Hemolithin TimeLine^[1] - McGeoch, J.E.M. - March 22, 2020

Hemolithin is the name given to a protein molecule isolated from two CV3 meteorites, Allende and Acfer-086. Its deuterium to hydrogen ratio is 26 times terrestrial which is consistent with it having formed in an interstellar molecular cloud or later in the protoplanetary disk at the start of our solar system 4.567 billion years ago. The elements hydrogen, lithium, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and iron that it is composed of were all available for the first time 13 billion years ago after the 1st generation of massive stars ended in nucleosynthetic events. The horizontal arrow in the time line graph shows on the scale of the start of the Universe to the present when Hemolithin could have formed and reformed.

The research leading to the discovery of Hemolithin started in 2007 when another protein, one of the first to form on Earth, was observed to entrap water.^[2] That property being useful to chemistry before biochemistry on earth developed, we performed theoretical enthalpy calculations on the condensation of amino acids in gas phase space asking: “whether amino acids could polymerize to protein in space?” - they could, and their water of condensation aided their polymerization.^[1] Since 2013 we have used meteorites as a source of extra-terrestrial material to determine experimentally whether our theory had validity. This led to several manuscripts of isotope and mass information on Hemolithin.^[3][4][5][6]