[gipp]

It's a potentially pretty big deal for understanding extraterrestrial chemical processes and estimating the likelihood of life, but to be clear this isn't anything like actual evidence of alien life.

It's a bit of a stretch to call this a "protein" TBH. The protein part is composed of only glycine, so there's really no information (e.g. DNA) required to synthesize it, just glycine and a chemical environment that would cause it to polymerize. The caps at either end are not protein components at all, as the article mentions, and protein backbones on Earth are never cyclic afaik.

But, it's still a very complex organic molecule ofc, which is very significant on its own, and its similarity to protein is evidence that protein-based life could be more common.