A researcher from Texas Tech University, after analyzing the vast amount of information collected, put forward a theory about how life could be formed on Earth. The scientist is sure that the appearance of the earliest forms of the simplest life on our planet would have been impossible without the participation of comets and meteorites that fell on it. The researcher shared his work at the 125th Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America, held October 31 in Denver, Colorado.
The author, professor of geoscience at the University of Texas Technological University (TTU) and curator of the museum of paleontology at the university, Sankar Chatterjee said that he arrived at this conclusion after analyzing information about the early geological history of our planet and comparing this data with various theories of chemical evolution.
The expert believes that this approach allows us to explain one of the most hidden and not fully studied periods in the history of our planet. According to many geologists, the bulk of the space "bombing", which was attended by comets and meteorites, occurred at a time about 4 billion years ago. Chatterjee believes that the earliest life on Earth was formed in the craters left behind by falling meteorites and comets. And most likely it happened during the “Late heavy bombardment” period (3.8–4.1 billion years ago), when the collision of small space objects with our planet increased sharply. At that time, there were several thousand cases of falling comets. Interestingly, this theory is indirectly supported by the Nice Model. According to this, the actual number of comets and meteorites that should have fallen to Earth at that time corresponds to the real number of craters on the Moon, which in turn is a kind of shield for our planet and did not allow the endless bombardment to destroy it.
Some scientists suggest that the result of this bombing is the colonization of the life of the oceans of the Earth. At the same time, several studies on this topic indicate that our planet has more water reserves than it should have. And this excess is blamed on comets that came to us from the Oort Cloud, which is supposedly in one light year from us.
Chatterjee indicates that the craters formed as a result of these collisions were filled with melted water from the comets themselves, as well as the necessary chemical building blocks necessary for the formation of the simplest organisms. At the same time, the scientist believes that those places where even after such a bombardment life did not appear, simply turned out to be unsuitable for this.
“When the Earth was formed about 4.5 billion years ago, it was completely unsuitable for the appearance of living organisms on it. It was a real boiling pot of volcanoes, poisonous hot gas and meteorites constantly falling on it, ”writes AstroBiology online journal, referring to the scientist.
"And after one billion years, she became a quiet and calm planet, rich in huge reserves of water inhabited by various representatives of microbial life - the ancestors of all living beings."
The article is based on materials .
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