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Asteroid Impacts May Have Formed Life's Building Blocks

Posted by Soulskill on from the project-genesis-begins dept.

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.

33 of 46 comments (clear)

  1. It's all "asteroids this" and "comets that"... by Black.Shuck · · Score: 1

    ...isn't Earth what happens when a gazillion "asteroids and comets" bump into each other?

    Think about that the next time you read "Comets brought water to Earth" or "Asteroids created the conditions for Life."

    No shit they did.

    1. Re:It's all "asteroids this" and "comets that"... by gargleblast · · Score: 1

      ...isn't Earth what happens when a gazillion "asteroids and comets" bump into each other?

      While everything on Earth came from comets (and asteroids, which are basically just sun-dried comets), this isn't about Earth. It is about one minor detail on Earth called Life.

      That said: Another day, another proposed abiogenesis mechanism. I am looking forward to the day one of these gets promoted to a model.

  2. The circle of life ... by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1

    What the little impact giveth, the humungous impact taketh away.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  3. RNA by WillKemp · · Score: 2

    I think it's a bit of an exaggeration to say many believe RNA was the first molecule to encode genetic information. As i understand it, there's no evidence to support that belief - and therefore no scientist should believe. However, many people suspect that was the case.

  4. Didn't we do this experiment like 15 years ago? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Or was it just the hypothesis that I heard that long ago? It was around the time that scientists created amino acids using "primordial soup" and high-voltage electricity.

    1. Re:Didn't we do this experiment like 15 years ago? by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      Hahaha, you young 'uns and your thinking everything was done recently.

      The year was 1952.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...

    2. Re:Didn't we do this experiment like 15 years ago? by cshay · · Score: 1

      Carl Sagan even had a chapter about it and a photo in the book Cosmos from 1980. That's where I first read about this as a boy.

  5. Drat! by SternisheFan · · Score: 2

    There goes three years of catholic school out the window!

    1. Re:Drat! by Guy+Harris · · Score: 1

      There goes three years of catholic school out the window!

      Presumably pre-1996 years.

    2. Re:Drat! by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      Not really, Catholics believe in evolution and have nothing against this theory. Catholics have contributed a great deal to science since science has absolutely no impact what so ever on religious beliefs. They are not in competition and can not be used for or against each other by definition.

      Only raving nutters try to mix science and religion. Raving nutters on BOTH sides of the God vs No God debate.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    3. Re:Drat! by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      Nonsense, irrational belief in supreme being with enforced rules of conduct and eternal life or everlasting punishment....these are all scientific nonsense and in the sense of a competition with science are the losing side. Believing a old man in a funny hat who sits in Rome is an authority on anything regarding how to live or how to believe or how to act is a farce.

    4. Re:Drat! by Gavagai80 · · Score: 1

      Catholics believe in evolution, but they don't believe in abiogenesis, which is the issue here.

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      This space intentionally left blank
    5. Re:Drat! by tehcyder · · Score: 1
      But the thing is, you can't just write off "how to live or how to believe or how to act" as "unscientific" and ignore them, or else people will continue to look for answers in religion.

      A rational scientific world view needs to include subjects like ethics, psychology and philosophy (and explanations of things like religion and myths).

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    6. Re:Drat! by technomom · · Score: 1

      Your using the term "Catholics" pretty liberally here. Catholics range, in fact, from pretty bible-thumping-believe-everything-the-Pope-tells-me to those who think the church hasn't been the same since Vatican 2, to cradle Catholics who attend mass mostly for the social aspects, from Steven Colbert to Bill O'Reilly. Hell you'll even find the same variety among priests and bishops. So, I'm fairly certain there are Catholics who believe in evolution and there are also those who don't. Same goes for abiogenesis.

    7. Re:Drat! by rubycodez · · Score: 1

      There is more to life than science, certainly. Philosophy is down the hall for ethics and how to act. Law further down for how to not act really, really badly.

  6. why is it always comets and asteroids? by The+Real+Dr+John · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    --
    A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
    1. Re:why is it always comets and asteroids? by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 2

      I think their hypothesis definitely czechs out, but I'm not so sure about yours.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    2. Re:why is it always comets and asteroids? by The+Real+Dr+John · · Score: 1

      good one. OK, how about this then? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu...

      --
      A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
    3. Re:why is it always comets and asteroids? by gewalker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      IMO, these announcements really don't really contribute anything meaninful. We pretty much know that simple organic molecules can form in a number of ways. Miller-Urey taught us quite a while ago that the basic precusrsor components were easily formed with basic chemistry that exists in nature.

      Getting the components to dance together as a living entity is a tremendously more difficult and unsolved problem. According to all we know abiogenisis is very improbable -- even with eons of chemicals doing their thing.

    4. Re:why is it always comets and asteroids? by The+Real+Dr+John · · Score: 1

      agreed. I really think that it has been shown many times that simple organic molecules plus energy equals more complex organic molecules. That still doesn't help very much with the biogenesis part.

      --
      A brain is a terrible thing to waste... Mind? That's debatable.
    5. Re:why is it always comets and asteroids? by chmod+a+x+mojo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      --
      To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!
    6. Re:why is it always comets and asteroids? by Dcnjoe60 · · Score: 1

      Why is it that astrophysicists always think that biogenesis and evolution have to come at the point of a comet or asteroid?"

      Because they aren't biologists or some other -ist.

    7. Re:why is it always comets and asteroids? by steelfood · · Score: 1

      Something about the necessary pressure perhaps?

      It's like making diamonds. You need both the carbon, the heat, and the pressure. Geothermal vents only have two of the three (though they may spit out diamonds).

      I'm just speculating. But I would imagine that if they thought geothermal was sufficient, they would have considered it. Of course, who knows, maybe it's the "science" journalist who's sensationalizing everything.

      --
      "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
    8. Re:why is it always comets and asteroids? by ColdWetDog · · Score: 1

      Astrophysicists are likely predisposed to thinking that important things come from Out There. More classical biologists have indeed hypothesized that purely earthbound reactions created the chemicals needed to start life. The chemistry is likely the same or very nearly so.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    9. Re:why is it always comets and asteroids? by BitZtream · · Score: 1

      They don't think that it 'had' to come from there, they are proposing a possible place that it started and showing that the conditions made it possible to happen. They aren't saying 'this is what happened', they are saying 'The conditions make it possible that it may occur during these types of events'.

      Astrophysicists don't (generally) know jack shit about hydrothermal vents, they know about things in space so they can't comment (reliably) on life in pools of chemicals or at the bottom of the oceans, but they can comment on asteroid and comet impacts.

      Marine biologists can also show that the conditions make it possible that it might have started near hydrothermal vents.

      In reality, its possible life thrives given the opportunity and it occurs at BOTH, as well as many others we haven't begun to think of yet.

      --
      Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
    10. Re:why is it always comets and asteroids? by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      But I would imagine that if they thought geothermal was sufficient, they would have considered it.

      Not only have geothermal vents been considered, it is currently the leading theory

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    11. Re:why is it always comets and asteroids? by tinkerton · · Score: 1

      Why is it that astrophysicists always think that biogenesis and evolution have to come at the point of a comet or asteroid?

      I also think this is a persistent and not very justified pattern of thinking. The hypothesis is a legitimate subject for investigation, but to quote an old post of mine: there's this assumption that the earth needed some kind of external kickstarter to get life going which originates in the conception that there was no way life could start from scratch so it had to come from elsewhere.

      Let's take the idea seriously instead that the earth never needed the external kickstarter. Instead, and that any potential external kickstarter would have been drowned out by what's already present.

    12. Re:why is it always comets and asteroids? by voislav98 · · Score: 2

      This! If you look at the science on this, pretty much any combination of basic ingredients (carbon monoxide/dioxide, methane, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, ammonia, etc.) and energy will produce the basic building blocks of life (amino acids or small peptides and nucleic acids). Energy can be anything, electrical discharge (the original Urey-Miller experiments), UV light (which also destroys some of the products, but forms them faster than they are destroyed), microwaves, ionizing radiation, etc. So as the parent said, people tend to pick the energy source that's in their area of expertise and for which they can get funding.

    13. Re:why is it always comets and asteroids? by micahraleigh · · Score: 1

      You need a spectacular event to receive spectacular funding.

  7. There are those that believe by 50000BTU_barbecue · · Score: 1

    that life *here* began *out there*

    --
    Mostly random stuff.
    1. Re:There are those that believe by SternisheFan · · Score: 1

      that life *here* began *out there*

      Ahh, then, if so, the question will be where did *they* get their start from?

      It's always seemed to me that comets would be the perfect system for spreading life throughout the universe. Perhaps carbon based life forms will one day prove to be the norm everywhere.

    2. Re:There are those that believe by HuguesT · · Score: 1

      Verrrryyyyy slow for a perfect system.

  8. Re:Not your typical next door astroid by Mariner28 · · Score: 1

    It was the Golgafrinchan ark http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/w...

    Good point. Now be a dear and go sanitize my telephone...

    --
    "A little misunderstanding? Galileo and the Pope had a little misunderstanding."