LONDON: Scientists have shown how an atom bomb like collision may have been common in the molecule on ancient Earth. The study was performed by lasers to Germination the impact of a large meteor with real Earth.
For the study, researchers used clay and chemical mixture, and subjected them to lasers to simulate energy of a speeding asteroid smashing into a planet. The impact of laser created crucial pieces of the building blocks of life. The findings were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Svatopluk Civis of the Heyrovsky Institute of Physical Chemistry in Prague, lead investigator of the study, said, “These findings suggest that the emergence of terrestrial life is not the result of an accident but a direct consequence of the conditions on the primordial Earth and its surroundings.”
The experiment, which was conducted at the Prague Asterix Laser Systems, produced all four chemicals needed to make RNA. Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymeric molecule. It is implicated in a varied sort of biological roles in coding, decoding, regulation, and expression of genes. DNA and RNA are nucleic acids, and, along with proteins and carbohydrates, constitute the three major macromolecules essential for all known forms of life.
In the past, researchers have been able to make RNA bases using other methods. But this was the first time it was created in a way, which is similar to the way a chemical reaction might happen in an event of asteroid crash.
The laser used in this experiment was 500 feet long and functional only for a fraction of second. The energy its impact — with clay and chemical mixture — created was equal to the outputs of a couple of nuclear power plants. The heat it generated was 7,600 degree Fahrenheit and its energy was measured to be billion kilowatts.
According to the researchers, billions of years ago Earth was getting bombarded with asteroids at 10 times more frequency than before or after. The period was called Late Heavy Bombardment, when solar system’s asteroids were bigger. Scientists of this study believe that those bombardments had the capability to create such results, which were observed in their experiment.
The findings do not conclusively prove that this is how life was created on Earth, but it does boost the theory about asteroid, which some have held for a long time. Some scientists even believe that certain microbes could have arrived on Earth, aboard a comet or an asteroid. But most scientists have disapproved that theory.
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