More Evidence That Life Came To Earth First From COMETS. Space, Man.

Every sci-fi geek has at some point contemplate the idea that life on Earth was brought to the Blue Marble by some outside force. Be it Martians or mayhem. Now there’s new evidence to support the idea that a comet got this whole funny fucking thing called human existence started.

io9:

Many people believe the seeds of life on Earth came from someplace else – but there’s always been a huge stumbling block for this theory. Any amino acids carried on a meteor would have needed to survive the intense journey through the Earth’s atmosphere, in order to be the origin of life on our planet.

But now, new research has shown the building blocks of life might not just have lived through the journey – it might have triggered their transformation.

New research by NASA is  being presented at the ACS Spring Meeting, and lead researched Dr. Jennifer Blank and her team have shown that the amino acids we know are on board meteoroids can survive the trip to becoming meteorites.

Blank’s research team simulated the trip the amino acids would have taken through the atmosphere by blasting them with a gas gun, a device capable of shooting a high-pressure shot of gas at supersonic speeds. The amino acids would have been protected by being on the interior of the comets, and the heat and shock of the trip and impact was not enough to break them down. In fact, pressure from the impact apparently counteracted the intense heat and even supplied the energy needed for the amino acids to start forming peptide bonds, allowing the creation of proteins. That’s right, the crash could be what triggered their transformation into a more complex form.

Divine influence or chance, take your pic. I find either proposal for explaining how a comet crashed into our goddamn planet and kick started the chain that led to me hunched over typing this nonsense pretty fucking incredible.