Asteroid Impacts May Have Formed Life's Building Blocks

sciencehabit writes: A high-powered laser in the Czech Republic has now provided provocative evidence that the hellish conditions produced when an asteroid or comet slams into Earth could have created some key building blocks of life on Earth. In a lab experiment intended to duplicate the high temperatures and pressures of such an impact (abstract), researchers used the laser to simultaneously make adenine, guanine, cytosine, and uracil, the four organic compounds in RNA, which many believe to have been the first molecule to encode genetic information.

Comments

why is it always comets and asteroids?

[The Real Dr John]

Why is it that astrophysicists always think that biogenesis and evolution have to come at the point of a comet or asteroid? Isn't it also possible that earth created the conditions for life at hydrothermal vents and other potent chemical-energy sources? The conditions at a hydrothermal vent seem much more conducive to biogenesis than an asteroid impact, and the opportunities for prolonged chemical synthesis of many organic compounds would far exceed anything you would get from occasional comet or asteroid strikes.

Re:why is it always comets and asteroids?

[chmod a x mojo]

I don't know. Hydrothermal vents ETC are far more likely, the deep water would provide shielding from cosmic radiation. The first bacteria we know of, from ~3.8Ga or so were completely anoxic since the atmosphere had little to no free oxygen... and therefore no ozone to filter out the radiation that was bombarding the surface.

If life had started by surface impact you would more likely than not see adaptations passed down the generations to be resistant to radiation damage, yet we don't see any indication of that even in ancient strains that survive to modern times.

That's not to say the research isn't interesting, since it is. It just doesn't seem likely due to several factors that may or may not be solved for in the future, only time will tell.