The origin of life on Earth may be one of the oldest scientific puzzles: how do we react properly between different elements to form life on earth? Scientists have been searching for answers to this question for centuries.
In a recent study, researchers at Yale University have shown that the Earth can produce up to 10 ^ 18 lightning bolts over a 1 billion year period. Over time, these lightning bolts can promote the “release” of phosphorus (phosphorus compounds are indispensable biological molecules for the origin of life on Earth).
“This work makes it possible for us to understand part of the study,” said Benjamin Hess, a graduate student in the Department of Earth Sciences and Planetary Science at Yale University and the first author of the study. form life on Earth, and possibly extend to study of planets – life could be forming on those planets in a similar way “. The origin of life also commonly known as the process of life generation (abiogenesis) is a term for the different theories about the formation and development of life on Earth. Of these theories, the most popular up to now are the scientific theories that say: this is the natural process by which life arises from non-living matter, from inorganic substances into single organic compounds. simplified, then evolved into today’s world. As we all know, phosphorus is an essential component of life on Earth. Even looking for extraterrestrial life in space, scientists will look for signs of phosphorus. However, billions of years ago, phosphorus was trapped in insoluble minerals and was difficult to escape and exert its effects. Therefore. This issue has been of interest to scientists for many years, who want to know how phosphorus is converted into an easier to use form, thereby promoting life-generating processes. Researchers suggest that the phosphorus that helps create life on Earth may come from schreibersite, a rare but very common mineral in meteorites. When lightning strikes soil or sand (derived from meteorites) on the ground, it can instantly melt and then solidify to form natural glass – fulgurite (also known as clayey rock. ). These meteors can be submerged, meaning that in the presence of water, the phosphorus in this mineral can be dissolved outward and potentially become part of a chemical reaction. Although the details of life’s formation on Earth are still unknown, the popular scientific hypothesis is that the transition from non-living entities to living entities is not an event. single, which is an increasingly complex process involving molecular self-replication, self-assembly, autogenesis and the appearance of cell membranes. Although the occurrence of the origin of life is not controversial among scientists, there is no single accepted model for the origin of life. Initially many scientists agreed with this idea, but through intensive research and statistics, they found that from 3.5 to 4.5 billion years before life on Earth was born. The number of meteors on our planet is not enough to be life-boosting factors. In the new study, Hess et al. Proposed that phosphorus on Earth could come from lightning strikes. They believe that this is more likely than that of elemental phosphorus coming from meteorites, because compared to asteroid collisions, the number of lightning strikes Earth each year is relatively stable. “This makes lightning an important way to study the origin of life,” Hess said. The team also used computer modeling to estimate how many lightning strikes occurred on Earth during the critical period in the beginning of life. They found that there could be between 1 billion and 5 billion lightning strikes the Earth each year, and 100 thousand to 1 billion of them falling on the Earth’s surface. Earth remains the only place in the universe known to life, and fossil evidence from Earth facilitates most studies of the origin of life. The age of the Earth is about 4.54 billion years, the earliest irrefutable evidence of life on Earth dates back at least 3.5 billion years ago, and possibly as early as the Ancient Pre-Tai era ( 3.6 to 4.0 billion years ago), after the geological crust began to harden after the molten Hadean Eon. In May 2017, scientists found possible evidence of early terrestrial life in the 3.48 billion year old geyserite and other related mineral deposits (often found around water springs). hot and geysers) discovered in Pilbara Craton, Western Australia. According to the study’s estimates, the number of lightning strikes on Earth could reach 10 ^ 17 to 10 ^ 18 in a billion years. Researchers suggest that under the impact of too many lightning strikes, after 1 billion years, ores formed by lightning strike the ground can release phosphorus that can participate in chemical reactions in the presence of water. In other words, it was lightning in this period that produced enough phosphorus to explain the existence of phosphorus at the origin of life on Earth.
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