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Helen Gordon
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“When our sun first ignited, temperatures in the inner solar nebula were high enough to convert everything to a gas. Afterwards, once things began to cool down, the first solids to condense were what looked today like small, irregularly shaped white grains. Known as calcium-aluminium-rich inclusions (CAIs), scientists have worked out the age using uranium-lead dating, a process similar to the radio carbon dating method. These studies indicate that the oldest CAIs so far measured formed 4.568 billion years ago, which is the reason we give that date for the beginning of the Solar System.”
― The Meteorites: Encounters with Outer Space and Deep Time
― The Meteorites: Encounters with Outer Space and Deep Time
“The traditional view of the Earth's first hundred million years is of a sterile, lifeless planet, too hot for many common elements and compounds with low boiling points, known as volatiles, to be present. If this was the case, how did life get started?
One well known theory is the primordial soup hypothesis, which suggests that intense ultraviolet radiation and lightning on the early Earth provided the energy for the chemical reactions to begin that eventually led to the creation of organic molecules. Another idea is that life began around alkaline events at the bottom of the ocean floor or on land in shallow hot springs. Chan and King argue that the abundance of organic molecules in Winchcombe tells us that complex organic chemistry was in fact a widespread feature throughout the infant Solar System. That such chemistry existed in space before it existed on Earth.
Their work suggests that, some 4 billion years ago, carbon-rich meteorites such as Winchcombe delivered into the early Earth not just water but amino acids and other prebiotic molecules. Once here, simple molecules - such as ammonia and carbon dioxide - could have combined with those prebiotic molecules to create the first proteins and RNA molecules - the blueprints to build and operate every living entity on Earth.
If Chan and King are right then the story that geologists trace back through the rocky layers of our planet finds it beginning not on our planet at all but back out in space, millions and millions of miles away. If they are right then we may very well all be the decedents of meteorites.”
― The Meteorites: Encounters with Outer Space and Deep Time
One well known theory is the primordial soup hypothesis, which suggests that intense ultraviolet radiation and lightning on the early Earth provided the energy for the chemical reactions to begin that eventually led to the creation of organic molecules. Another idea is that life began around alkaline events at the bottom of the ocean floor or on land in shallow hot springs. Chan and King argue that the abundance of organic molecules in Winchcombe tells us that complex organic chemistry was in fact a widespread feature throughout the infant Solar System. That such chemistry existed in space before it existed on Earth.
Their work suggests that, some 4 billion years ago, carbon-rich meteorites such as Winchcombe delivered into the early Earth not just water but amino acids and other prebiotic molecules. Once here, simple molecules - such as ammonia and carbon dioxide - could have combined with those prebiotic molecules to create the first proteins and RNA molecules - the blueprints to build and operate every living entity on Earth.
If Chan and King are right then the story that geologists trace back through the rocky layers of our planet finds it beginning not on our planet at all but back out in space, millions and millions of miles away. If they are right then we may very well all be the decedents of meteorites.”
― The Meteorites: Encounters with Outer Space and Deep Time
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