Scientists have recreated the "spark of life" in the lab

Using a powerful laser, scientists have managed to recreate in the laboratory what could be the original spark of life on Earth. To do this, they warmed up laser clay and a chemical soup to simulate the energy of an asteroid crashing into the planet. Ultimately we got what is considered to be important building blocks of life.

These results do not prove that life emerged on Earth about 4 billion years ago, and some scientists generally are not impressed with the results. But this experiment strengthened the old theory.

"The results showed that the emergence of life on Earth is not the result of chance, but a direct sequence of primary Land and the environment", — summed up the researchers in a paper published Monday in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Laser arson had produced all four chemical bases needed to create RNA, the simplest basics of life, when compared with DNA. After these grounds remains a destination for many as the mysterious steps that you had to go through life to develop. But this experiment could be a potential starting point in this process.

Scientists could recreate the Foundation of RNA and in other ways, using chemical mixes and pressure, but this is the first experiment which confirms that the energy of the cosmic bombardment could cause a critical chemical reaction, said lead author Svatopluk the Tsivis from the Institute of physical chemistry Heyrovskeho in Prague.

Tsivis said that the scientists used a laser almost 150 metres long that for a fraction of a second to heat up the chemical soup of the invisible beam. The laser power was so high and concentrated that billionth of a second his work was equivalent to power output of several nuclear power plants. In the end, within fractions of a second on a small piece in a fraction of an inch was concentrated a billion kilowatts of energy that warmed the broth up to 4,200 degrees Celsius, says Phys.org.

It is believed that early forms of life on Earth until a strange way developed in a period called the Late heavy bombardment, when the asteroid belt in our Solar system were more and rained space strikes our planet more often, says study co-author David Nesvorny, a planetary scientist from the southwest research Institute in Colorado. Then the asteroids bombarded the Earth ten times more frequently than before or after.

Other experts ' opinions on the importance of the experiment divided.

Steve Benner, a distinguished biochemist of the Foundation for applied molecular evolution in Florida, said that the experiment is quite relevant because it produced the starting material that could appear on the young Earth.

But John Sutherland of the laboratory of molecular biology in Cambridge believes that the amount of a substance a base formed is so small that the results cannot be called relevant. Other scientists also recommend leading the experiment, not to exaggerate their achievements.

An alternative theory of the origin of life on Earth implies that microbes arrived here from space on a comet or asteroid — is the seed of life. The work of Civica implies that instead of the seed was the fire of life. This is the theory of creation and destruction simultaneously.

To all of this chemical reaction to work, the incredible energy of the asteroid collision was to break molecules into less complex chemicals, which then be rebuilt into the more vital combinations. Nesvorny says that the asteroid that sowed the spark of life on Earth, after billions of years, could claim the lives of dinosaurs.

Source: hi-news.ru