Comets: Key ingredients for life on Earth
April 30, 2009
An Israeli scientist says comets might have provided the elements for the emergence of life on Earth.
Tel Aviv University Professor Akiva Bar-Nun said he discovered comets were the source of missing ingredients needed for life in Earth’s ancient primordial soup.
When comets slammed into the Earth through the atmosphere about 4 billion years ago, they delivered a payload of organic materials to the young Earth, adding materials that combined with Earth’s own large reservoir of organics and led to the emergence of life,
said Bar-Nun. He said it was that chemical composition of comets that allowed them to kick-start
life.
His theory appears in the journal Icarus.
Source: upi