Life brought to Earth by comets

[Waspie_Dwarf]

NASA scientists have replicated the impact of a comet and demonstrated that amino acids, a building block of life, could have survived the intense heat and shock waves given off in the collision.

The combination of water, energy and amino acids – which bind together to form proteins – could have caused the first chemical reactions and created proteins, the researchers said.

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.

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Edited June 9, 2012 by Waspie_Dwarf
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[space11498]

maybe we should research the comets in the oort cloud to know more about these life carrying comets!

a thoughtful post.

[S2F]

I've always been fascinated by this theory, it's good to see experimentation that supports the possibility of a panspermia type incident.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

maybe we should research the comets in the oort cloud to know more about these life carrying comets!

The problem is that we have never even seen a comet in the Oort Cloud.

We have no absolute proof the Oort cloud exists. It is hypothesized as the result of statistical analysis of the orbits of comets. It seems almost certain that it exists, but the detection of such small, cold bodies at such a vast distance from the sun is currently beyond our capabilities.

[space11498]

May be you are right because;

EVERY BIT of evidence for the existence of the Oort Cloud is contained in the following statements:

The solar system is 4.5 billion years old. A comet can only survive a limited number of close approaches to the Sun before hitting a planet, or the Sun, or disintegrating. However, there are still comets! Therefore, there must be some vast reservoir of comet-like objects somewhere and some mechanism that causes these objects to fall into the inner solar system.

Astronomer Jan Oort assumed that the reservoir of comet-like objects waiting in deep space is probably far beyond the orbit of Pluto. In his honor, the area of unborn comets is called the Oort Cloud.

In 1950, Dutch astronomer Jan Hendrik Oort proposed that comets might originate in a cloud of material, now called the Oort Cloud. Orbiting the sun at great distances, the orbits of these comets are occasionally disrupted by the gravitational influence of nearby stars sending them hurtling towards the inner solar system.

So great is the distance of the Oort cloud from the Sun that some of these long period comets can take 30 million years to finish one trip around the Sun.

Spherical in nature, the Oort Cloud is believed to exist about halfway between the Sun and the Heliopause. The Heliopause is the imaginary edge that marks the end of the Sun's influence in our solar system.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

space11498,

When you quote other sites please provide a source link. Thank you.

Link for above post: Answers.com

[JayMark]

Quite interesting. I've heard about this in the past.

Immagine if that was proved to be true. It could, in my opinion, leave a lot of opened doors to the question of other lifeforms in the universe (guess it is already the case).

Very nice.

Peace.

[space11498]

space11498,

When you quote other sites please provide a source link. Thank you.

Link for above post: Answers.com

Sorry. I will see to it next time.