Abiotic Production of Organic Molecules
The classic experiment demonstrating the mechanisms by which inorganic elements could combine to form the precursors of organic chemicals was the 1950 experiment by Stanley Miller. He undertook experiments designed to find out how lightning--reproduced by repeated electric discharges--might have affected the primitive earth atmosphere. He discharged an electric spark into a mixture thought to resemble the primordial composition of the atmosphere. In a water receptacle, designed to model an ancient ocean, amino acids appeared. Amino acids are widely regarded as the building blocks of life.
Although the primitive atmosphere is no longer believed to be as rich in hydrogen as once thought, the discovery that the Murchison meteorite contains the same amino acids obtained by Miller, and even in the same relative proportions, suggests strongly that his results are relevant.The Beginnings of Life on Earth
Others have made similar experiments. A group at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, San Diego, exposed sulfur-bearing molecules like those thought to have been present before the Earth formed to low levels of light. The presence of the light was enough to generate organic compounds - molecules containing carbon, which form the chemical basis of life as we know it. Meteorite Reveals Life Not Difficult to Make
The new compounds had a distinct isotopic (atomic makeup) signature, not normally found on Earth. In fact, the peculiar part is that these isotopes have only been found one other time, in compounds removed from the Murchison meteorite.
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To those in search of the meaning of life, search no more. It seems to me that you and I are no more special than a rock.