AFP | 6 hours 49 min ago
Paris: Life on Earth was kick-started thanks to a key mineral deposited by a meteorite from Mars, according to a novel theory aired on Thursday.
The vital ingredient was an oxidised mineral form of the element molybdenum, which helped prevent carbon molecules — the building blocks of life — from degrading into a tar-like goo. The idea comes from Steven Benner, a professor at the Westheimer Institute for Science and Technology in Gainesville, Florida, who was to present it at an international conference of geochemists in Florence, Italy.
“It’s only when molybdenum becomes highly oxidised that it is able to influence how early life formed,” Benner said in a press release.
“This form of molybdenum couldn’t have been available on Earth at the time life first began, because three billion years ago the surface of the Earth had very little oxygen, but Mars did.” In this violent epoch of the Solar System, the infant Earth was pounded by comets and asteroids.
Mars, too, would have come under bombardment, and the impacts would have caused Martian rubble to bounce into space, where they would have lingered until eventually being captured by Earth’s gravity.
“The evidence is building that we are actually all Martians, that life started on Mars and came to Earth on a rock. It’s lucky we ended up here as Earth is life sustaining” said Benner.
The vital ingredient was an oxidised mineral form of the element molybdenum, which helped prevent carbon molecules — the building blocks of life — from degrading into a tar-like goo. The idea comes from Steven Benner, a professor at the Westheimer Institute for Science and Technology in Gainesville, Florida, who was to present it at an international conference of geochemists in Florence, Italy.
“It’s only when molybdenum becomes highly oxidised that it is able to influence how early life formed,” Benner said in a press release.
“This form of molybdenum couldn’t have been available on Earth at the time life first began, because three billion years ago the surface of the Earth had very little oxygen, but Mars did.” In this violent epoch of the Solar System, the infant Earth was pounded by comets and asteroids.
Mars, too, would have come under bombardment, and the impacts would have caused Martian rubble to bounce into space, where they would have lingered until eventually being captured by Earth’s gravity.
“The evidence is building that we are actually all Martians, that life started on Mars and came to Earth on a rock. It’s lucky we ended up here as Earth is life sustaining” said Benner.
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