Early Earth was not very hospitable when it came to jump
starting life. In fact, new research shows that life on Earth may have come
from out of this world.
Lawrence Livermore scientist Nir Goldman and University of
Ontario Institute of Technology colleague Isaac Tamblyn (a former LLNL postdoc)
found that icy comets that crashed into Earth billions of years ago could have
produced life building organic compounds, including the building blocks of
proteins and nucleobases pairs of DNA and RNA.
Comets contain a variety of simple molecules, such as water,
ammonia, methanol and carbon dioxide, and an impact event with a planetary
surface would provide an abundant supply of energy to drive chemical reactions.