This assertion journal is in response to New Scientists’ article “Was life founded on cyanide from space crashes?” http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18120-was-life-founded-on-cyanide-from-space-crashes.html
Recently I have been exploring evolution and creation. That was the topic of the research paper proposal we just submitted. I struggle with believing in what my church tells me, that there is a divine God who created everything, or my scientific intuition. I found this article very intriguing because it gives other hypotheses into the origin of life on this planet. That is at least a baby step into coming to peace with the origin of the entire universe.
NASA is now hypothesizing that the Earth could have been formed from crashes which deposited organic material. The Earth first formed too close to the Sun to allow gases to condense into organic solids. In the early stages of the universe, collisions occurred very frequently. Comets and asteroids would bombard Earth. Comets and steroids contain high concentrations of organic materials. Could these have been the building blocks for life on Earth? Well, sorry to burst the bubble but no they couldn’t. The intense heat and pressure of the impact of these cosmic “balls” would destroy complex compounds and decompose into the simpler organic molecule such as carbon dioxide. New tests have been done by Seiji Sugita of the University of Tokyo and reveal a new theory that rebukes the past idea. While the heat and pressure of the impacts destroys possible compounds, poisonous cyanide gas is released. Cyanide is molecule consisting of nitrogen bonded to carbon and is highly reactive. Since it is reactive, the cyanide would increase chemical reactions with Earths atmosphere and produce more complex molecules.
These early reactions lead into the evolutionary model and Darwin’s theory. We all evolved from a common ancestor and survival of the fittest produces genetic variation. While NASA’s information may seem highly unlikely, it is more information I can debate on. By independently researching, I am trying to find an answer to the origin of the universe that I agree on.
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I highly agree with you that the building blocks for life could not have come from cyanide-based comets and asteroids for similar reasons. Also, this theory does not stand up for other reasons as well; how did those cyanide molecules convert to carbon dioxide through a heated atmoshpere when the conversion of heated cyanide molecules actually forms carbon and nitrous oxide. When cyanide is heated, it is seperates the carbon molecules, the atoms that burn faster then the nitrogen molecules, and nitrogen. What is left over by the time the extraterrestrial projectile hits the planet, it has already used up all of the carbon molecules and most of the nitrogen molecules, instead of having carbon dioxide you would have a mixture of nitrogen molecules with oxygen that is in the atmosphere to creat nitrous oxide, which would be extremely hazardous for us to breath in and not support the building blocks of life or evolution. When the theory of evolution was based on the fact that life had started outside of Earth, it would not stand up because the necessary molecules that are needed would not survive the initial impact by a comet or asteroid, because they would have already been used up and the left-over heavier molecules would become the atmosphere, which are hazardous and would not be able to support our nature.
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