Humanity may have taken a step closer to answering the age-old question: Where do we come from? In 2022, a series of studies presented evidence supporting the theory that life on Earth originated from the universe.
This long-standing hypothesis in the astronomical community, once considered insane and only found in science fiction, is gradually proving its practical points: Life on Earth came from the universe, traveling here via “trains” of comets and asteroids when the planet was still young.
Could aliens be not far away but right here among us? – (Image: WEELY WORLD NEWS).
In recent years, increasing research has supported this strange hypothesis. More recently, in February 2022, a study led by Dr. S.A. Krasnokutski from the astrophysics laboratory of the Max Planck Institute and Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Jena, Germany) focused on peptides, which are smaller versions of proteins and essential building blocks for life, to recreate the historical context from 4 billion years ago.
According to Science Alert, they utilized an ultra-high vacuum chamber along with various substrates to simulate conditions in cosmic dust clouds, demonstrating that amino ketene – a chemical precursor for forming peptides – can be synthesized directly in such an unusual environment.
This study, published in Nature Astronomy, asserts that 4 billion years ago, materials produced in this cosmic “forge” landed on Earth and sowed the seeds of life.
Did life originate from ancient supernovae and then get seeded on Earth by meteors? – (Image: DISCOVER MAGAZINE).
The materials for this cosmic forge must have arisen from a chemically diverse environment—something that did not exist in the primordial chaos of the universe. This issue was addressed in a study published in The Astrophysical Journal in October 2022 by researchers from Japan, the USA, and Australia: it concerns the supernovae from Population III stars.
Population III stars are the oldest stars in the universe, observed by super telescopes that peer into worlds billions of years old, with the oldest being over 13 billion years old.
These stars, like modern stars, explode as supernovae at the end of their life cycles. They were responsible for “pumping” a variety of elements into the impoverished primordial universe, which originally contained only hydrogen, helium, and trace amounts of lithium.
The final piece of the puzzle—what delivered life to Earth—continues to be supported by meteorites falling to our world, carrying varying levels of what is referred to as “the building blocks of life.”
A breakthrough in this line of research also occurred in 2022, with a study published in Nature Communications in April 2022. In three famous meteorites that fell in Murchison, Murray (Australia), and Tagnish Lake (Canada), scientists discovered something shocking: traces of DNA!
A fragment of the famous Murchison meteorite – (Image: METEORITE TIMES MAGAZINE).
Sci-News quoted Dr. Yasuhiro Oba from Hokkaido University (Japan) stating that they sought to identify two nucleobases: purine and pyrimidine. These organic molecules can be synthesized in extraterrestrial environments, so they hoped to find them in these space rocks.
The results not only confirmed the existence of these two nucleobases but also a range of other nucleobases. Nucleobases are the “chemical building blocks” that form the essential structures of life: DNA and RNA.
The research team believes that while this discovery does not yet directly declare that life on Earth—including us—originated from some distant extraterrestrial world, it contributes to demonstrating how the fundamental structures of life in the universe could form and make their way to our planet.
