Specifically, the team investigated whether complex molecules such as peptides would form - short-chain amino acids that bond together to create proteins. "This indicates that the same process occurs in interstellar space. This suggests that the same reaction might occur for other, more complex amino acids that are also essential to life. The understanding was that more complex molecules formed much later, once the gases had begun coalescing into a disk that eventually becomes a star. It is therefore very likely that other peptides naturally form in interstellar space as well.