Superflare: The Link Between Solar Storms and the Origin of Life on Earth – National Geographic

Nationalgeographic.co.id—The first building blocks of life on Earth may have formed thanks to superflare or our solar storms, says a new study.

A series of chemical experiments show how solar particles created solar storms by colliding with the gases in Earth’s early atmosphere. This event can form amino acids and carboxylic acids. These two chemical elements are the basic building blocks of protein and organic life.

The study findings related to solar storms and the origin of life on Earth have been published in the journal Life pada 28 April 2023 bertajuk “Formation of Amino Acids and Carboxylic Acids in Weakly Reducing Planetary Atmospheres by Solar Energetic Particles from the Young Sun.”

To understand the origin of life, many scientists have tried to explain how amino acids are the building blocks of proteins and all living cells.

The most famous proposal comes from the late 1800s, when scientists speculated that life may have started in a “little warm pool”: A soup of chemicals, energized by lightning, heat, and other sources of energy, which could mix together in varying amounts. concentrated. These then form organic molecules.

In 1953, Stanley Miller of the University of Chicago attempted to recreate these primordial conditions in the laboratory. Miller filled the enclosed chamber with methane, ammonia, water and molecular hydrogen—gases thought to be common in Earth’s early atmosphere—and repeatedly lit an electric spark to simulate lightning.

A week later, Miller and his colleague, Harold Urey, analyzed the contents of the chamber and found that 20 different amino acids had been formed.

“That’s a big find,” said Vladimir Airapetian, a stellar astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and co-author of the new paper. “From the basic components of the primordial Earth’s atmosphere, you can synthesize these complex organic molecules,” he added.

Over the past 70 years the phenomena produced by solar storms have had a more complicated interpretation. However, scientists now believe that ammonia (NH3) and methane (CH4) are much less common. In contrast, Earth’s air is filled with carbon dioxide (CO2) and nitrogen molecules (N2), which require more energy to decompose. These gases can still produce amino acids, but in very small quantities.

In the search for alternative energy sources, some scientists point to shock waves from incoming meteors. Other scientists cite the sun’s ultraviolet radiation. Airapatian, using data from NASA’s Kepler mission, demonstrated a new idea: energetic particles from our Sun.

Kepler observes distant stars at different stages of their life cycles, but the data provides clues about our Sun’s past.