Did life reach Earth in comets? Scientists explain

By Amira Shehata

Friday, November 17, 2023 01:00 AM

Scientists have long believed that the building blocks of life may have arrived on Earth Guilty textThis is frozen rock and ice in space, and research now indicates that this may also happen to other planets in the Milky Way, so as comets move from planet to planet their motion slows down, ensuring that the necessary molecules are present. A conflict can be avoided.

British newspaper “Daily Mail” reports that scientists say the best place to look for extraterrestrial life is the habitable zone in systems where planets are close together, and this is what happened.

“We’re always learning more about exoplanetary atmospheres, so we wanted to find out if there are planets where complex molecules can be supplied by comets,” said lead researcher Richard Anslow of the University of Cambridge.

He added, “The molecules that gave rise to life on Earth probably came from comets, so the same applies to other planets in the galaxy.”

Comets are rich in prebiotic compounds that form the building blocks of organic life, and comets contain high levels of hydrogen cyanide (HCN), which is an important molecule for the basis of life.

However, comets must travel less than 9.3 miles per second (15 km/s) to sustain the heat and energy of planetary impacts, and on small planets like Earth, the impact speed is 12.4 miles per second (20 km/s)/sec), only 0.2% of the time. HCN Alive.

However, the researchers found that when comets pass through a chain of exoplanets, they slow down to their proper speed.

Conditions where planets orbit their star in a tight cluster are better, rather than spread out across the orbital plane, and the discovery will allow scientists to narrow down the selection of planets where life might be found.