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Mistletoe 7 months ago

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/space/must-all-molecules-life...

More explanation here.

>Oftentimes both the left- and right-handed versions of, for example, an amino acid, were found in equal amounts—exactly what might be expected. But in many cases, one or more organic molecule was found with an excess of one hand, sometimes a very large excess. In each of those cases, and in every meteorite studied so far by other researchers in the field, the molecule in excess was the left-handed amino acid that is found exclusively in life on Earth.

polishdude20 7 months ago | parent [-]

Could these asteroids be from when the moon was created?

skykooler 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

The moon was created far before life formed - the best estimates put its formation about 4.5 billion years ago, while life didn't form until 3.7 billion years ago. So any complex molecules from that process would not be present on asteroids of lunar origin.

nkrisc 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

A better way to put it might be that current lineages of life on Earth arose after the moon was created - the assumption being any life that arose before the moon was created would not have survived a fully molten Earth.

gcanyon 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

For a really brilliant visualization of the time scale, I can't recommend this Kurzgesagt video highly enough. It's an animation of the condition of the entire history of the Earth, at 1.5 million years per second of video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7TUe5w6RHo

singularity2001 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

>> The moon was created far before life formed

not in the panspermia theory

rybosome 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

Perhaps debris from an asteroid impact.