Assumed age of LUCA: 4.2 billion years. Age of Solar system: 4.6 billion years. LUCA had ribosomes. A ribosome is assembled and shaped by about 200 different proteins, it is an ultra-complicated molecular machine.
Conclusion: pre-LUCA evolution and abiogenesis did not happen on Earth, or even in the Solar system.
Corollary: life (at least on some primitive level) is probably common in the Universe, or at least in our local area of the galaxy.
400 million years is a fucking long time. If the right conditions existed, I don't have any problem believing abiogenesis happened here on Earth, even with the first part of that during the Hadean lava world.
This theory has been around since the 50's, and I think it's cool that people are still poking at it. Although it looks like their real purpose was to make ammonia for fertilizer, which to me is a funny connection to the origins of life.
Assumed age of LUCA: 4.2 billion years. Age of Solar system: 4.6 billion years. LUCA had ribosomes. A ribosome is assembled and shaped by about 200 different proteins, it is an ultra-complicated molecular machine.
Conclusion: pre-LUCA evolution and abiogenesis did not happen on Earth, or even in the Solar system.
Corollary: life (at least on some primitive level) is probably common in the Universe, or at least in our local area of the galaxy.
400 million years is a fucking long time. If the right conditions existed, I don't have any problem believing abiogenesis happened here on Earth, even with the first part of that during the Hadean lava world.
I find it curious that you're choosing an article that strengthens the general case for abiogenesis on which to opine this point.
This theory has been around since the 50's, and I think it's cool that people are still poking at it. Although it looks like their real purpose was to make ammonia for fertilizer, which to me is a funny connection to the origins of life.