A “time-reversing” experiment has successfully created the precursors of life from the “lifeless” molecules of Earth during the Hadean Eon.
According to Sci-News, a research team attempted to replicate the famous experiment conducted by scientist Stanley Miller of the University of Chicago (USA) in 1953, who successfully created 20 types of amino acids from methane, ammonia, water, and molecular hydrogen, along with an artificial lightning strike.
Dr. Miller’s experiment is considered a “half success” because it indeed produced some amino acids, deemed the building blocks of life, despite not uncovering the pathway for these amino acids to evolve into more complex forms.
Another significant question arises: Is lightning sufficient to produce the necessary amino acids?
Primitive Earth – (Graphic image from NASA).
The new study, led by Dr. Vladimir Airapetian, an astrophysicist from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, suggests that this pathway could indeed be valid, but replacing lightning with energy particles from the Sun would yield clearer results.
The research team recreated the conditions of Earth during the Hadean Eon, also known as the “Archean Era”, spanning from the Earth’s formation (over 4.5 billion years ago) to about 3.8 billion years ago.
In that hot and ancient Earth, the Sun was about 30% dimmer than it is today but erupted with powerful energy bursts every 3-10 days.
They combined carbon dioxide, molecular nitrogen, water, and different amounts of methane in each experimental sample, igniting those mixtures with electric sparks that simulated lightning or protons mimicking solar energy flows.
The results showed that cosmic energy particles shot from the Sun produced significantly more and diverse amino acids compared to those generated by lightning. This energy source proved to be more abundant than lightning.
“These experiments indicate that a young, vigorously active Sun may be the catalytic factor for the precursors of life, occurring more easily and perhaps earlier than previously thought,” the publication in the journal Life affirmed.
