Wonder how life started on Earth? Study asteroids: US experts

Experts from Georgia Institute of Technology, US reveal that asteroids may help explain how life started on Earth.

According to a study conducted by a team of researchers at the institute, asteroids may act as 'time capsules' and may help reveal what molecules originally existed in the solar system.

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“We can look to the asteroids to help us understand what chemistry is possible in the universe,” noted Nicholas Hud from Georgia Institute of Technology.

“It’s important for us to study materials from asteroids and meteorites, the smaller versions of asteroids that fall to Earth, to test the validity of our models for how molecules in them could have helped give rise to life. We also need to catalogue the molecules from asteroids and meteorites because there might be compounds there that we had not even considered important for starting life,” Hud said.

For decades, NASA scientists have been analysing compounds found in asteroids and meteorites. The analysis provides an understanding of what might have been present when the Earth was formed.

“Detection of a molecule in an asteroid or meteorite is about the only evidence everyone will accept for that molecule being prebiotic. It is something we can really lean on,” he said.

In Hud's theory, there are many possible ways that the molecules of life could have been formed. He believes that life could have started with "less sophisticated" and "less efficient" molecules than what we see today. Like life itself, these molecules could have evolved over time.

(With inputs from PTI)