“It’s alive! It’s alive!” In the movie “Frankenstein From 1931, Dr. Henry Frankenstein’s triumphant scream was electrifying in more than one meaning. huge rays and energy discharges crackled the monster began to move on a laboratory table, its corpse being brought to life by Power of electricity .
Electricity may also have been the spark that has started life on Earth billions of years ago, although less theatrical than in the classic scene of the film.
Earth is about 4.5 billion years, and the older fossil evidence of life – stromatolites, or microscopic organisms preserved in layers known as microbial rugs – is approximately 3.5 billion years. However, some scientists suspect that life has emerged even before, from the accumulation of organic molecules in primitive water bodies, a mixture often called primordial soup.
But where did this organic material come from? Decades ago, researchers proposed that rays could have caused chemical reactions in the oceans of the primitive earth, spontaneously producing organic molecules.
Now a new research published on March 14 in Science Advances Magazine It suggests that almost invisible “micro-ray” discharges, generated between electrically charged mist droplets, could have been powerful enough to synthesize amino acids from inorganic material. Amino acids – organic molecules that combine to form proteins – are the fundamental blocks of life and would have been a first step towards its evolution.
“It is recognized that an energy catalyst was almost certainly necessary to facilitate some of the primitive land that led to the origin of life,” said Astrobiologist and geobiologist Dr. Amy J. Williams, associate professor at the University of Florida Department of Geosciences.
For amino acids to form, they need nitrogen atoms capable of binding to the carbon. However, releasing these particles from nitrogen gas requires breaking strong molecular bonds, which requires a huge amount of energy, explained Williams, who was not involved in the research.
“The rays, or in this case, the micro-rays have enough energy to break these molecular bonds and thus facilitate the generation of new essential molecules for the origin of life on Earth,” Williams told an email to an email to CNN .
Mist and micro-rays
To recreate a scenario that may have led to the formation of the early organic molecules on Earth, researchers were based on experiments conducted in 1953, when American chemicals Stanley Miller and Harold Urey created a gaseous mixture that imitated the atmosphere of primitive land.
The two scientists combined ammonia (NH₃), methane (CH₄), hydrogen (H₂) and water, sealed this “atmosphere” into a glass sphere and applied electric discharges. The experiment resulted in the production of simple amino acids containing carbon and nitrogen.
The Miller-Urey experiment, as it became known, has supported the scientific theory of abiogenesis, which proposes that life may have emerged from non-living molecules.
For the new study, scientists revisited 1953 experiments, but focused their attention on electrical activity on a smaller scale, a senior author of the study said Dr. Richard Zare, Professor Marguerite Blake Wilbur of Natural Sciences and Professor of Chemistry at Stanford University in California.
Zare and his colleagues analyzed the exchange of electricity between electrically charged water droplets, with diameters between a micrometer and 20 micrometers. (For comparison, a human hair has about 100 micrometers wide.)
“The larger droplets are positively charged. The smallest are negatively charged,” Zare told CNN . “When the part with opposite loads are close, the electrons can jump from the negatively charged drip to the positively charged drip.”
The researchers mixed ammonia, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrogen in a glass bulb and then spray the gaseous mixture with a mist of water. Using a high-speed camera, they captured subtle flashes of steam micro-ray.
When examining the contents of the bulb, they discovered organic molecules with connections between carbon and nitrogen. Among them were glycine amino acid and uracil, a nitrogenous base present in RNA.
“We have not discovered any new chemistry; in fact, we reproduced all the chemistry that Miller and Urey did in 1953,” said Zare. He also explained that the team did not discover new laws of physics – the experiments were based on known principles of electrostatic.
“What we did, for the first time, was to note that small droplets, when formed from water, emit light and generate this spark,” said Zare. “This is new. And this spark triggers all kinds of chemical transformation.”
Water and Life
The rays are a dramatic display of electricity, but they are also sporadic and unpredictable events. Even in an unstable primitive land, billions of years ago, the rays may have been too rare to produce amino acids in sufficient quantities to support life – a fact that in the past has released doubts about such theories, said Zare.
On the other hand, water spraying was much more common than the rays. A more likely scenario is that the mulled micro-rays constantly triggered the formation of amino acids in puddles and shallow lakes, where these molecules could accumulate and form more complex compounds, eventually leading to the evolution of life.
“Microdescharges between loaded water microgoticles produce all the organic molecules observed above in the Miller-Come experiment,” said Zare. “We propose that this is a new mechanism for the prebiotic synthesis of the molecules that make up the fundamental blocks of life.”
However, even with these new discoveries about micro-rays, there are still many unanswered questions about the origin of life, Zare added.
While some scientists advocate the idea that the first blocks of life emerged through electrical processes, another hypothesis of abiogenesis suggests that the early amino acids of the earth were formed around hydrothermal sources at the bottom of the sea, from the interaction between ocean water, hydrogen -rich fluids and extreme pressure.
Another hypothesis suggests that organic molecules did not originate on earth. Instead, they would have formed in space and have been brought here by comets or asteroid fragments, in a process known as panspermia.
“We still don’t know the answer to this question,” said Zare. “But I believe we are closer to better understanding what may have happened.”
Although the details of the origin of life on earth may never be fully explained, “this study offers one more possibility for the formation of crucial molecules for the emergence of life,” said Williams.
“Water is an ubiquitous element in our world, which led to the description of the earth as ‘blue marble’ when seen from space. Perhaps the fall of water, this essential element for our survival, played an even greater role in the origin of life on earth than we imagined,” he concluded.
This content was originally published at the beginning of life on Earth gains a new hypothesis from an old experiment on the CNN Brazil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
Charles Grill is a tech-savvy writer with over 3 years of experience in the field. He writes on a variety of technology-related topics and has a strong focus on the latest advancements in the industry. He is connected with several online news websites and is currently contributing to a technology-focused platform.
