New Delhi:
According to a new study, large meteorites and comet impacts into the sea may have been behind the formation of nurseries giving rise to favorable conditions for life on Earth.
Water interacted with impact- heated rock to enable synthesis of complex organic molecules, the enclosed crater itself was a micro-habitat within which life could flourish, researchers team at Trinity College Dublin suggest.
Scientists have also come up with the findings such as how meteoritic and cometary material that bombarded early Earth delivered the raw materials. According to the researchers, impact craters were ideal environments to facilitate the reactions that saw the first “seeds of life” take root.
“The findings suggest that extensive hydrothermal systems operated in an enclosed impact crater at Sudbury, Ontario, Canada,” said first study author Edel O’Sullivan. Microbial life within the crater basin was responsible for the build-up of carbon.
