Meteors may have brought life to Earth billions of years ago
source: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-sci-meteor6-2009jun06,0,622229.story?track...
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Researchers suggest that meteors may have delivered enough water and carbon dioxide to the planet to create the conditions for life to form.
A massive bombardment of meteorites billions of years ago could have brought in enough water and carbon dioxide to jump-start the chemistry that allowed the Earth to develop into the garden spot of our solar system.
That amount of water, about 10 times the daily outflow of the Mississippi River, and carbon dioxide would have been enough to set off a greenhouse effect that eventually made the Earth warm and wet enough to harbor plants and creatures. Meanwhile, the other planets entered existences of torture by fire and ice.
This isn't the first time scientists have theorized that the ingredients for life on Earth could have been delivered by a kind of cosmic mail-order system once the Earth was move-in ready. Comets and asteroids both have been proposed as cosmic Fed-Exes ferrying water as well as organic compounds to Earth.
What distinguishes the new research, published this week in the earth and planetary science journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, is its suggestion of when and how the Earth received its shipment of life-giving material.
"It is fair to say that the amount delivered in this bombardment alone was enough to kick-start the Earth on its way to habitability," study author Richard Court, an Imperial College professor of Earth science and engineering, said in an e-mail.
A massive bombardment of meteorites billions of years ago could have brought in enough water and carbon dioxide to jump-start the chemistry that allowed the Earth to develop into the garden spot of our solar system.
That amount of water, about 10 times the daily outflow of the Mississippi River, and carbon dioxide would have been enough to set off a greenhouse effect that eventually made the Earth warm and wet enough to harbor plants and creatures. Meanwhile, the other planets entered existences of torture by fire and ice.
This isn't the first time scientists have theorized that the ingredients for life on Earth could have been delivered by a kind of cosmic mail-order system once the Earth was move-in ready. Comets and asteroids both have been proposed as cosmic Fed-Exes ferrying water as well as organic compounds to Earth.
What distinguishes the new research, published this week in the earth and planetary science journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, is its suggestion of when and how the Earth received its shipment of life-giving material.
"It is fair to say that the amount delivered in this bombardment alone was enough to kick-start the Earth on its way to habitability," study author Richard Court, an Imperial College professor of Earth science and engineering, said in an e-mail.
