"Life Brought To Earth By Comets" Scientists Claim

I have personally always thought of this possibility of first "life" on earth. This is very interesting and worth a read. Could we have really come from outer space? And if true, what about after the extinction periods? Did more comets bring more life to earth? www.telegraph.co.uk...

Comets really would have been the ideal packages for delivering ingredients for the chemical evolution thought to have resulted in life. We like the comet delivery scenario because it includes all of the ingredients for life — amino acids, water and energy."Existing evidence suggests that life began on Earth about 3.8 billion years ago during a period known as the "late heavy bombardment", when the planet was battered by vast numbers of comets and asteroids.

Presenting their findings at a meeting of the American Chemical Society, they said that several comets, asteroids and meteorites arriving over a long time span could have brought repeated batches of these ingredients to the primordial Earth. Comets, giant balls of frozen gas, ice, dust and rock which measure up to 10 miles in diameter, orbit the Sun in a belt far more distant than the furthest planets, but occasionally break free and zoom directly into our solar system.

I was taught this in my Earth Science class, I didn't know this was news.

Either way, pretty darn interesting. Just goes to show who the true aliens are.

Originally posted by ofNight
I was taught this in my Earth Science class, I didn't know this was news.

Either way, pretty darn interesting. Just goes to show who the true aliens are.

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Dr Jennifer Blank, who led the study, said: "Our research shows that the building blocks of life could have remained intact despite the tremendous shock wave and other violent conditions in a comet imp

WOW!!! Maybe YOUR teacher should have conducted this study. Seems your teacher was WAY ahead of these measily scientists

edit on 28-3-2012 by AllUrChips because: (no reason given)

edit on 28-3-2012 by AllUrChips because: (no reason given)

reply to post by AllUrChips


Panspermia

Doesn't take a scientist to read from a text book and teach something that has been hypothesized for years. Way to go.

So we are aliens from another planet? That would mean that there would be another planet out there with people just like us on it! Well at least it's possible...

Not life exactly. Just some amino acids.

It's feasible and the ramifications are pretty staggering. It would mean that, if it is really the case, life anywhere would be likely to be DNA based.

The amino acids were undamaged by the experiment, which mimiced the impact of a comet, and went on to form the bonds that link them together as proteins which enable life to exist.

It's my understanding that RNA came before the primordial 10 or so amino acids (which don't need to be biosynthesized unlike the others), and that the genetic code with its codon boxes was already established at this point. At least in modern life, amino acids are only bonded thru the actions of interacting RNA molecules (mRNA, tRNA & rRNA). That's why the quoted piece is rather illogical. Proteins didn't enable life, but RNA enabled use of proteins which paved the way for cellular life.

Originally posted by rhinoceros

The amino acids were undamaged by the experiment, which mimiced the impact of a comet, and went on to form the bonds that link them together as proteins which enable life to exist.

It's my understanding that RNA came before the primordial 10 or so amino acids (which don't need to be biosynthesized unlike the others), and that the genetic code with its codon boxes was already established at this point. At least in modern life, amino acids are only bonded thru the actions of interacting RNA molecules (mRNA, tRNA & rRNA). That's why the quoted piece is rather illogical. Proteins didn't enable life, but RNA enabled use of proteins which paved the way for cellular life.

edit on 29-3-2012 by rhinoceros because: (no reason given)

That makes sense. RNA can perform the functions of both DNA and enzymes...but it is far less stable than DNA. They've done studies with a bacteriophage (I don't remember which one) and found that self-replicating RNA structures can and do withstand selective pressures.

Anyway, I wouldn't get too excited about amino acids. Proteins, not amino acids, must be present and survive. Because with the proteins, the chances are good that RNA and/or DNA are present.

Also, this doesn't solve the problem of how life originated. It just moves the responsibility for it somewhere else.