The first building blocks of life on Earth may have formed thanks to eruptions from our Sun:
A series of chemical experiments show how solar particles, colliding with gases in Earth's early atmosphere, can form amino acids and carboxylic acids, the basic building blocks of proteins and organic life. The findings were published in the journal Life.
To understand the origins of life, many scientists try to explain how amino acids, the raw materials from which proteins and all cellular life, were formed. The best-known proposal originated in the late 1800s as scientists speculated that life might have begun in a "warm little pond": A soup of chemicals, energized by lightning, heat, and other energy sources, that could mix together in concentrated amounts to form organic molecules.
In 1953, Stanley Miller of the University of Chicago tried to recreate these primordial conditions in the lab. Miller filled a closed chamber with methane, ammonia, water, and molecular hydrogen – gases thought to be prevalent in Earth's early atmosphere – and repeatedly ignited an electrical spark to simulate lightning. A week later, Miller and his graduate advisor Harold Urey analyzed the chamber's contents and found that 20 different amino acids had formed.
[...] But the last 70 years have complicated this interpretation. Scientists now believe ammonia (NH3) and methane (CH4) were far less abundant; instead, Earth's air was filled with carbon dioxide (CO2) and molecular nitrogen (N2), which require more energy to break down. These gases can still yield amino acids, but in greatly reduced quantities.
[...] "During cold conditions you never have lightning, and early Earth was under a pretty faint Sun," Airapetian said. "That's not saying that it couldn't have come from lightning, but lightning seems less likely now, and solar particles seems more likely."
These experiments suggest our active young Sun could have catalyzed the precursors of life more easily, and perhaps earlier, than previously assumed.
Journal Reference:
Kensei Kobayashi, Jun-ichi Ise, Ryohei Aoki, et al., Formation of Amino Acids and Carboxylic Acids in Weakly Reducing Planetary Atmospheres by Solar Energetic Particles from the Young Sun [open], Life, 2023. https://doi.org/10.3390/life13051103
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Barenflimski on Wednesday June 07, @04:58PM (4 children)
These guys ever seen thunder snow?
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday June 07, @11:40PM
I've seen a midwinter nighttime blizzard in Montreal once with spectacular lightning. An exciting time to me outside in a (warm) car.
We managed not to run into a cyclist that somehow was riding during the storm without a light.
I imagine it was not a pleasant time to be out in the storm on a bicycle.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday June 08, @04:16PM (1 child)
I had not heard of the term "thunder snow" until I googled it.
In ordinary thunderstorms, my observations seem to suggest that thunder is one of the leading causes of lightning. Although the thunder sound and the flash of light seem to be out of time sync just a bit. One day, science may explain this.
When Lucifer was cast out of heaven down to Earth, theologians debate whether he landed in Florida or Texas.
(Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Thursday June 08, @06:57PM
It may be one of the coolest things mother nature does. It is a sensory overloading event.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday June 08, @11:10PM
A handful of times in my seven decades. Most of them were right after large radiation leaks, the 1950s and '60s atom bomb tests, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, once in the '70s that wasn't associated with anything in the news. Of course, there's no proof it was caused by radiation, only suspicion.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience