Origins of Life in Earth

Artist's depiction of the Hit

How do you think baby Earth managed to keep hold of its organic matter after the throttling it took by a Mars sized object about 4.4 billion years ago that melted a part of the earth, as suggested by the scientists? Scientists believe that molten splatters of earth that ended up in space gradually came together to form the Moon and lightweight materials, like water and carbon, would have vapourised.

The most bewildering question is that how did then the building blocks for life managed to survive?

A new study of the scientists suggest that the organics were locked in stable chains formed from formaldehyde, an ironic finding considering the fact that formaldehyde ended up being poisonous to the very life it may have made possible. Formaldehyde is also plentiful in molecular clouds in space, meaning ample quantities would have been around for incorporation into the solar system's population. Two chains of evidence support this theory. The first evidence is the organic solids that have been found in meteorites and in comets. Secondly a sample from NASA's Stardust comet mission make this theory more solid.

"Formaldehyde is very interesting, very reactive. It can even react with itself and form complex polymers,"said George Cody, a senior scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Cody also states that it is the most chemically complex material he had ever seen in his life.

Scientists then went to lab work to reproduce the type of organic matter found in carbonaceous chondrites, a type of organic rich meteorite, from formaldehyde. They found that their formaldehyde-synthesized material was similar to what found in the carbonaceous chondrites and from Comet Wild 2, which was sampled by NASA's Stardust probe. The experiments also enlightened the fact that the organics would survive at temperatures of upto 1400 centigrade.

"The Formaldehyde forms the little tiny organic balls,"said Cody. He adds that other molecules found in space, such as hydrogen cyanide, also could polymerize with itself but they break apart in hot water. Formaldehyde is almost unique in its tendency to hang out and on as the solar system got hotter and dryer.

Therefore, the team's discoveries is a related study showing that comets may be much more watery than earlier thought.

Share