A meteor falling into a warm little pond marked the start of life on earth. Somewhere between 3.7 and 4.5 billion years ago, the said meteorites splashed down and leached essential elements into warm ponds. According to scientists at McMaster University and the Max Planck Institute in Germany, their calculations suggest that wet and dry cycles bonded the basic molecular building blocks in the ponds’ nutrient-rich mixture into a self-replicating RNA molecule that constituted the first genetic code for the future of life on planet Earth.
After going through exhaustive research and calculations, the researchers have based their conclusions on aspects of astrophysics, geology, chemistry, biology and other related disciplines. The concept of warm little ponds being the hub of early life has been there since Darwin, but the researchers have now proven its plausibility through many evidence-based calculations. The lead authors of the study, Ben K.D. Pearce and Ralph Pudritz, both of the McMaster’s Origins Institute and its Department of Physics and Astronomy, explain that the evidence available suggests that life began when the earth was still taking shape with various continents emerging from the oceans. During this very time, the meteorites pelted the planet including the ones that bore the building blocks of life. There was no protective ozone to filter the Sun’s ultraviolet rays as well.
Although speculations existed, this calculation is the first of its type and is a pretty big beginning for the in-depth study of the origin of complex life on Earth. The study consists of inputs from a variety of fields which makes the study surprising as it all aligns together. Each step into the study led smoothly to the next one providing a clear picture in the end that this theory might be the actual truth. The conclusions of this study in collaboration with Dmitry Semenov and Thomas Henning of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy have been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
Astronomy plays a vital role into the study of Earth as it was billions of years ago. This particular field of the survey explains how our solar system had a direct impact on the origin of life on Earth. The essential spark of life was the creation of RNA polymers which are the main components of nucleotides which were delivered by meteorites. These RNAs reached sufficient concentration making them bond together as the water level fell and rose through the ever occurring cycles of precipitation and drainage. These combinations were pretty necessary for bonding.
These conclusions also appear to remove the space dust as the source of generating these nucleotides. Although these specks of dust carried the building blocks, they weren’t enough in concentration to start life. This theoretical paper combines all the loose ends of the skeptical idea by Darwin by utilizing all the fields of study and provides a clear insight into the formation of life.
Evidence proves Darwin was right: Life started on Earth after meteorite fell on warm pond
