An Indian-origin scientist claims
to have solved the mystery of how life on earth exactly began about 4 billion
years ago after studying three sites containing the world’s oldest fossils.According
to Sankar Chatterjee, a Texas Tech University palaeontologist, meteorite
bombardment left large craters on earth that contained water and chemical
building blocks for life, which ultimately led to the first organisms.
How life began on earth has baffled humans for millennia.
Dr. Chatterjee, who was born in
Kolkata, believes he has found the answer by connecting theories on chemical
evolution with evidence related to our planet’s early geology. “This is bigger
than finding any dinosaur. This is what we have all searched for — the Holy
Grail of science,” he said.Thanks to regular and heavy comet and meteorite
bombardment of earth’s surface during its formative years 4 billion years ago,
the large craters left behind not only contained water and the basic chemical
building blocks for life, but also became the perfect crucible to concentrate
and cook these chemicals to create the first simple organisms. Dr. Chatterjee’s
research suggests meteorites can be givers of life as well as takers. He said
it was likely that meteor and comet strikes brought the ingredients and created
the right conditions for life on our planet.By studying three sites containing
the world’s oldest fossils, he believes he knows how the first single-celled organisms
formed in hydrothermal crater basins. “When the earth formed some 4.5 billion
years ago, it was a sterile planet inhospitable to living organisms,” Dr.
Chatterjee said, going on to add: “It was a seething cauldron of erupting
volcanoes, raining meteors and hot, noxious gasses. One billion years later, it
was a placid, watery planet teeming with microbial life — the ancestors to all
living things.”
Dr. Chatterjee presented his
findings at the Annual Meeting of the Geological Society of America in Denver.
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