For years, astronomers have been scanning nearby asteroids, the moon, Mars, and deeper space for evidence of the building blocks of life.
Now, a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that both water and organic material could actually have our planet surrounded, floating around space on ubiquitous interplanetary dust particles that constantly rain down on Earth and the other bodies in our solar system.
“It is a thrilling possibility that this influx of dust has acted as a continuous rainfall of little reaction vessels containing both the water and organics needed for the eventual origin of life on Earth and possibly Mars,” researcher and study co-author Hope Ishii of the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology said in a release.
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In the case of comets, the icy space rocks import frozen water from beyond the solar system when they come to visit, but the traces of water on interplanetary dust particles are actually a product of the solar wind that blasts them with hydrogen ions, shaking up the atoms of the silicate mineral crystals in the dust particles. This process leaves behind some oxygen to react with hydrogen and create water molecules.
“Perhaps more exciting,” Ishii said, “interplanetary dust, especially dust from primitive asteroids and comets, has long been known to carry organic carbon species that survive entering the Earth’s atmosphere, and we have now demonstrated that it also carries solar-wind-generated water. So we have shown for the first time that water and organics can be delivered together.”
(via Ingredients for life hitching ride on space dust, study says | Crave – CNET)
The Committee to Nuke Elysium 