By Jacopo Prisco, CNN

(CNN) — Recreating a piece of the universe in a bottle might sound like science fiction, but it’s exactly what Linda Losurdo did.

Losurdo, a doctoral student in materials and plasma physics at the University of Sydney, used simple gases and electricity to recreate conditions usually found in the vicinity of stars and supernovas to produce a tiny amount of cosmic dust.

Cosmic dust is an essential component of the universe; it plays a role in star formation and acts as a catalyst for organic molecules that constitute the building blocks of life. The dust is abundant in interstellar space — the vast region between stars, and it is embedded in comets and asteroids. However, it’s difficult to study on Earth because, although particles and rocks from space constantly bombard our planet, most of that material burns up in the atmosphere. What little survives in the form of meteorites is often impossible to locate and collect.

Losurdo said that by making cosmic dust in the lab, she hopes to give scientists an extra tool to understand how life started on Earth.

“When we’re looking at big questions like the origins of life, we have to look at where the building blocks started from,” she said. “Where did all the carbon on Earth begin its life, and what type of journey did it have to go through in order to then be able to build into things like amino acids?”

Amino acids were among the earliest molecules to appear on Earth and are connected to most life processes, including the formation of proteins. But there’s a big question, Losurdo said, about whether amino acids were formed on Earth or if they had a different origin: space.

Producing a cosmic dust analogue can help researchers investigate this and other questions about the crucial chemistry that led to life on Earth, without having to rely exclusively on samples from space.

“Meteorites take so long to fall, and it’s quite hard to collect dust, let alone collect dust near a giant, dying old star,” added Losurdo, whose work was published last week in The Astrophysical Journal of the American Astronomical Society. “So we must have something to study. And even if it’s only a little bit, we get a lot more information out of it.”

Building up a database

To make the cosmic dust, Losurdo started with nitrogen, carbon dioxide and acetylene — a colorless, odorless gas made up of carbon and hydrogen. With coauthor David McKenzie, a professor of materials physics at the University of Sydney, she vacuumed the air out of a glass tube and introduced the gases. The pair then applied 10,000 volts of electricity to the gases for an hour, making a type of plasma, or electrically charged gas, called a “glow discharge.”

“You’re completing a circuit across the gas itself, so the gas is getting excited, electrons are flying off, creating an environment in which things want to bind and coalesce and aggregate,” Losurdo said. “And that’s a very natural process. It’s something that we know for certain happens around stars.”

The result was a few milligrams of “dusty nanoparticles,” she added. “They are a little bit challenging to collect and analyze, so what I do is actually get the dust to deposit itself on a silicon wafer,” she said. “Silicon is a fantastic material for so many reasons, and it allows us to only see the stuff on the wafer itself and not the silicon.”

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By Hannah Rabinowitz, CNN

(CNN) — Attorney General Pam Bondi announced Friday that the FBI has arrested a “key participant” behind the 2012 Benghazi terror attack in Benghazi, Libya.

The man, Zubayar Al-Bakoush, is being charged with the murders of Ambassador Chris Stevens and State Department employee Sean Smith, as well as the attempted murder of State Department Special Agent Scott Wicklund, officials said, as well as conspiracy and arson charges.

“We have never forgotten those heroes, and we have never stopped seeking justice for that crime against our nation,” Bondi said at a press conference about the arrest.

Two Navy SEALs, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, were also killed in the attack nearly 14 years ago.

Bondi credited the FBI, State Department and CIA for working together to arrest Bakoush, declining to give details beyond that he was arrested overseas. A plane that departed Misrata, Libya, on Thursday landed at the Manassas Regional Airport in Virginia at 3 a.m. Friday, according to flight data reviewed by CNN.

According to court documents, Bakoush was a member of Ansar al-Sharia, the Islamic militant group that claimed credit for the deadly attack.

Prosecutors say he entered the Benghazi diplomatic mission about 15 minutes after the attack began and tried to break into staff members’ cars.

He was charged eleven years ago, but the case remained sealed until his arrest Friday, US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said, adding that she had spoken to the family members of those killed in the attack. Her office will be leading the prosecution.

“Let me be very clear, there are more of them out there,” Pirro said Friday. “Time will not stop us from going after these predators, no matter how long it takes in order to fulfill our obligation to those families who suffered horrific pain at the hands of these violent terrorists.”

Bakoush’s arrest marks another milestone in one of the most challenging FBI investigations in recent years, in part because of instability and factional warfare in Libya since the US helped oust the regime of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

The US relied on the help of local militants allied with the US-recognized government to help capture Ahmed abu-Khattalah, one of the leaders in the attack, in 2014. He is now serving a 28-year sentence for his role.

FBI Director Kash Patel, who worked as a national security lawyer in the Justice Department at the time, was part of the team that worked on the investigation.

The US captured a second suspect in the attack, Mustafa al-Imam, in 2017.

He was convicted of two charges related to the attack and was sentenced to more than 19 years in prison.

Benghazi was followed with a yearslong political firestorm and several investigations over who, or what, was responsible for the attack and how the administration handled its wake.

Republicans have consistently criticized the Obama administration and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton over alleged security failures at the facility and their response to the attack.

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