Could the Earliest Life Forms Have Come from Outer Space?If there could be something mysterious, complicated, and still unknown in the world that would be nothing other than the origin of life. We all sort of know what life is, but has anyone wondered what it is exactly made up of, how did it originated, from where did it originated, and why did it originated. There are plenty of answers to these questions, but we still do not know if they can be trusted fully, not even today in the 21st century. The reason behind it is that, even though the scientists found proofs and evidences to support their hypothesis, there is always that one part which states that they cannot guarantee it. Life is something really precious, and that is probably the reason, many of us believe in the theory of Special creation, which states all the different forms of life on planet earth have been created by a superior power (God). Being religious, knowing that there are theories which state that there is a possibility that the earlier life forms from came from the outer space really interests me. However, there are several other theories which states different views about how the earlier life was formed.
So, what are life’s important components and what it is made up of exactly? All the living organisms on the planet earth are built from the six essential ingredients namely carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur. Each of these elements plays an important role. Carbon, as it can easily enter into the other carbon atoms, is the perfect building block for large organic molecules. Nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen are abundant; moreover each of them are able to show the acid-base effects that allows them to bond with carbon to make amino acids, fats, lipids, and the nucleo-bases from which DNA and RNA are built. Next, sulfur arranges for electron shuffle, which eventually help in catalyzing reactions. Phosphorous plays an important role in metabolism as polyphosphate molecules like ATP are capable of storing energy in their chemical bonds.
Billion years ago, it was normal when the planet earth was showered by meteorites. In fact, the journey of the question whether the life came on earth from outer space started when a meteorite, Grave Nunataks 95229, was found in Antarctica in 1995 by the group of researchers. Antarctica is still best place in the world to find meteorites as the cold and dry conditions preserve them well and they are easy to find on the ice (Bowdler, Neil). At this point, there were some scientists who believed that Earth did not have basic molecules such as nitrogen to develop any forms of life (Dr. Caroline Smith, Expert from Natural History Museum in London). However, nitrogen is one of the essential elements of the life, and so scientists posed a doubt that if the earth did not possessed many of the compounds necessary for life including enough nitrogen, then where did it come from? In addition, it is said that the earlier atmospheric environments of the earth were not right
The fossil record of ancient Earths may be of a mixed record. The fossil record of primitive Earth shows that there were at least 4 million-5 million years left on the Earth’s early history and then that a massive number more than the number of ice ages will have to be wiped off in the coming decades. Even if the majority of the Earth’s climate was not ideal for life to develop, many fossils have been found in the past (Stevens, Thomas).
One reason why a fossil record is lost in the present is because most of the fossils were found before a civilization of humans arrived at the same time. In many cases these fossils were just found when the dinosaurs became extinct. In some countries the fossils are buried by fossil hunters, but that is rare. In other countries, there was not a single individual specimen of fossil life. So the date, place, and fossils are not important anymore. In fact, the more that we find the less accurate date, place, and fossils.
Of the 12,000 fossil specimens that were discovered to date, only 10 have been found in the modern Earth. It was estimated that the oldest specimen on Earth, a 1 million year old fossil, is now more than 60 billion years old. The number of prehistoric fossils could be reduced and we may be looking at more fossils in our future.
In our present civilization, a lot of fossilized human remains were found after the Earth was completely destroyed or in water depths that are much narrower than modern day. The oldest fossil is the 2 billion year old fossil of a 3.6 million-year-old skull of a human found in a cave in Japan. The fossils are still visible today and it is no doubt that these were found several thousand years before and before the Earth was burned to the ground (Wieder).
In our current civilization, there will be no scientific approach to identifying or identifying the fossil bones or the life of the fossils that are most likely to be detected in the fossil record.
In any instance, if we are looking at the fossil record of ancient Earths with the accuracy we expected when we discovered fossils, or at all, how did the Earth’s climate change cause it?
References:
Brown, S R. (2007) What did the Earth’s surface do with carbon? Nature Climate Change 3, 569 pp.
Brown, S R. & Stolper, N. M. (1999) A major part of Earth’s history that can be preserved. Nature 496: 1523-1611.
Brown, S R. (1995) Introduction. Geological Society of America, Annual Meeting of the American Geophysical Society.
Brown, S R., Cauchy, M. & Rensink, R. M., The existence and fate of the Earth and the history of evolution. In H. Fennell and J. L. Hirsch (Eds.), Handbook of geologic studies. New York: McGraw-Hill. pp. 119-139
Chiicholme, E L., Wiese, J., Boudreauère, M., and Fournier, P. A. (2013) A large number of new samples have been collected from two different different locations and also from different ages from an island in a mountainous environment in order to estimate how much terrestrial and carbonate remains we have recovered. J. Paleontology 48: 914-926.