Abstract
Traditional hypotheses on the origin of bioorganic molecules are reviewed. “Miller–Urey experiment” is looked again in the recent picture of the early Earth. The presently known cooling history of the early Earth suggests rather a reasonable mechanism of organic molecule formation; i.e., the “late heavy bombardment” (LHB) of meteorites at 4.0 ~3.8 b.y.a. would have led to the chemical conditions to produce a large amount of organic molecules on the Earth’s surface. Simulation experiments of meteorite impact to ocean have confirmed the phenomena of evaporation of rock-forming minerals and of a mass production of ammonia, a precursor of amino acid, in post-impact plume.
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Notes
- 1.
The flask had a long S-shaped neck to avoid the incursion of bacteria, but allows the exchange of air. This type of flask was later referred to as a Pasteur flask or swan-necked flask.
- 2.
An experimental result that several amino acids were synthesized even in the “oxidative” gas mixture of CO2, CO, N2, and H2O by irradiation with a proton beam was reported in 1990 (Kobayashi et al. 1990). However, since the proton, H+, acts chemically as a hydrogen ion, it should not be included as a case of oxidative conditions.
- 3.
The classification of meteorites is described precisely in reference (Norton 2002). Meteorites are roughly divided as stony meteorites (93%), stony-iron meteorites (1%), and meteoritic iron (6%). The percentages in parentheses indicate the percentage of those types of meteorites collected so far.
The stony meteorite is further divided into chondrites (85%) containing chondrules (granular olivine and pyroxene) and acondrite (8%) not including chondrules. Chondrites are divided further into ordinary chondrites (81%) containing metallic iron or iron sulfides, carbonaceous chondrites (5%), containing neither iron nor iron sulfide, and E-chondrites (1.5%), especially rich in metallic iron (~25%).
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Nakazawa, H. (2018). “Miller–Urey Experiment” in the Recent Picture of the Early Earth. In: Darwinian Evolution of Molecules. Advances in Geological Science. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8724-0_4
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