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Comets may have destroyed life's ingredients instead of delivering them to Earth

from ScienceDaily

A century-old theory about the origins of life on Earth may be wrong. New research from the University of Cambridge suggests that comets traveled too fast and struck at unfavorable angles for the fragile molecules needed for life to survive, making successful delivery extraordinarily unlikely. Surprisingly, Mars may have had a better chance of receiving these cosmic ingredients, although even there the odds were slim. The findings point toward asteroids or chemical processes on Earth as more plausible sources of life's building blocks.

explained

Panspermia (from Ancient Greek πᾶν (pan) 'all' and σπέρμα (sperma) 'seed') is the hypothesis that life exists throughout the universe, distributed by cosmic dust, meteoroids, asteroids, comets, and planetoids, as well as by spacecraft carrying unintended contamination by microorganisms, known as directed panspermia. The theory argues that life did not originate on Earth, but instead evolved somewhere else and seeded life as we know it.

Panspermia comes in many forms, such as radiopanspermia, lithopanspermia, and directed panspermia. Regardless of its form, the theories generally propose that microbes able to survive in outer space (such as certain types of bacteria or plant spores) can become trapped in debris ejected into space after collisions between planets and small Solar System bodies that harbor life. This debris containing the lifeforms is then transported by meteors between bodies in a planetary system, or even across planetary systems within a galaxy. In this way, panspermia studies concentrate not on how life began but on methods that may distribute it within the Universe. This point is often used as a criticism of the theory.

From Wikipedia: Panspermia (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗ · text CC BY-SA 4.0
how it works

Impact survival depends on speed and angle. Faster, steeper impacts produce higher temperatures and pressures, which break organic molecules apart.

so what

It reshapes a popular story about where life began. If comets did not seed life, the answer lies in rocks or in chemistry on the planet's surface.

fun fact

Comets are often described as dirty snowballs, mixtures of ice, dust and organic compounds.

more on this

Illustrative photo · E. Kolmhofer, H. Raab; Johannes-Kepler-Observatory, Linz, A…, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons