Life on Earth may have initially been favored by microscaric generated by the drops of water vaporized in waterfalls and waves.
The primordial broth, the comets, the asteroids, the lightning, the hydrothermal fireplaces: on what the “to life on earth has given the” life is at the moment only to advance hypotheses, but now another has emerged – rather convincing – which has the protagonist water again, in a different form. The chemical bricks necessary for life could be born from micrumpulmini created by the collision between drops of vaporized waterlike those present in waterfalls and marine waves.
This is what suggested, in an article published on Science Advancesfrom a group of scientists from the University of Stanford, California. The proposed idea would help to explain how simple gases and non -living organic material present on the land of origins managed to create the organic molecules with carbon and nitrogen atoms linked together with the basis of life, like proteins and enzymes.
The initial spark. Methane, ammonia and nitrogen, which are thought to be present in the form of gas and together with water on primordial land, do not contain carbon-nazote ties. On how these are initially formed in time, different hypotheses have been advanced. In 1953, in an experiment that went down in history, the US chemists Stanley Miller and Harold Urey showed that in fact electricity could transform these “ingredients” into organic molecules. But their theory is that these electrical discharges were derived from a “cascade” lightning,, a very improbable frequency Based on one of the different critical issues of Miller-Urey’s theory.
Lightning yes, but micro. Stanford scientists driven by chemist Richard Zare used high -speed cameras to find that, when vaporized water droplets of opposite electrical charge almost collide, weak flashes of electricity flow between themthat we could call micrumpulmini. Zare and colleagues sprayed the droplets in a mix of methane gas, CO2, ammonia and nitrogen, and shown that the soft micrumpulmines created by the water can form organic molecules With carbon-nazote bonds, without the need for other sources of external electricity.
Bricks of life. Each micro -ulin generates an energy of about 12 electronvols, sufficient to make an electron lose the gas molecules and make them react with each other. A process that generates organic molecules such as thecianidric acidfundamental for the origin of life and also found on the Moon of Saturn Encelado, or the amino acid glycineof which there was talk in relation to the atmosphere of Venus, or even theurecileone of the components of the EN.
The ideal habitat. Based on this theory, therefore, the collisions between the drops of water in the waves or waterfalls may have provided the basic ingredients to start life on earth.
Of particular interest is the fact that the splashes of water often they deposit on the rocks: the organic molecules could have accumulated in the rocky grooves and become more complex gradually, during the subsequent cycles of wet-dry, which is known allow the more short molecules to combine in long chains.
More targeted investigations. The study could redirect the search for life on other planets, since the exobilologists who study it often first go in search of water. It may be worth focusing on contexts in which the water is present in vaporized dropsable to collide frequently.
