Space & Astronomy

Comets could have sparked life on Earth

By T.K. Randall
August 19, 2015 ·  16 comments

Did a comet impact kick-start life on Earth ? Image Credit: NASA/JPL The exact process through which the first life forms came in to being on our planet four billion years ago has remained a topic of intense study and debate for centuries.

One theory, which proposes that life on Earth was kick-started by comets, has now been given something of a boost thanks to a team of Japanese researchers who have found a way to demonstrate what happens when a comet strikes the surface of the planet.

To accomplish this the team created a special 'soup' of amino acids, ice and rock and then fired it through a propellant gun to simulate the effects of a comet collision.What they discovered was that the force of the impact had fused some of the amino acids together as peptides - the first step on the journey towards the formation of more complex molecules.

"This finding indicates that comet impacts almost certainly played an important role in delivering the seeds of life to the early Earth," said Dr Haruna Sugahara.

"It also opens the likelihood that we will have seen similar chemical evolution in other extraterrestrial bodies, starting with cometary-derived peptides."

"Comet impacts are normally associated with mass extinction on Earth, but this works shows that they probably helped kick-start the whole process of life in the first place."

Source: Telegraph | Comments (16)

Tags: Comet, Earth