Tuesday 4 October 2022 10:21 AM Life on Earth may have started in SEA SPRAY, dramatic discovery suggests trends now
Life on Earth may have started in sea spray thanks to a chemical Big Bang, scientists believe.
They made a 'dramatic discovery' that the building blocks for all living things emerge spontaneously when water droplets meet air.
'This is essentially the chemistry behind the origin of life,' the researchers at Purdue University in Indiana said.
Most scientists agree that the chemicals needed for life were brought to Earth on asteroids and comets, which also deposited water.
But they have long been stumped over how these simple molecules and amino acids could have sparked into life.
Life on Earth may have started in sea spray thanks to a chemical Big Bang, scientists believe
It had been thought the ingredients came together slowly bit by bit, but this new theory suggests life happened all at once in a chemical Big Bang.
Lead author Professor Graham Cooks, of Purdue University in Indiana, said: 'This is essentially the chemistry behind the origin of life.
'This is the first demonstration that primordial molecules, simple amino acids, spontaneously form peptides, the building blocks of life, in droplets of pure water.
'This is a dramatic discovery.'
The finding may even hold the key to better medications for humanity's most debilitating diseases, according to the US team.
Professor Cooks added: 'The rates of reactions in droplets are anywhere from a hundred to a million times faster than the same chemicals reacting in bulk solution.'
Speeding them up makes catalysts unnecessary. Understanding how this process works is the 'holy grail' of chemistry, experts say.
It sheds light on why life happened and informs the search for it on other planets, or even moons.
For decades scientists have theorised it began in the oceans but the chemistry remained an enigma.
When Earth formed 4.5 billion years ago it was a sterile ball of rock — slammed by
