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

RNA

[WillKemp]

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.

Drat!

[SternisheFan]

There goes three years of catholic school out the window!

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?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

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

Re:why is it always comets and asteroids?

[gewalker]

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.

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.

Re:why is it always comets and asteroids?

[voislav98]

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.