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Vrondiyesterday at 8:27 PM2 repliesview on HN

Comets is where many astronomers have long thought the ocean came from. Comets are literal drops in our ocean. LOTS of comets. The atmosphere and the Earth at large would have been very different, and being bombarded by many giant space snowballs (along with asteroids) would have contributed materials. The missing part is, um, missing. We still do not know. However, these samples contained building blocks, not actual self-replicating RNA. That might seem like nothing, but before this discovery, we thought they only contained one ingredient.


Replies

asdfftoday at 4:54 AM

One thing that is beginning to be appreciated is, if you have building blocks, under the right conditions, you also have self replicating RNA.

https://chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002...

heavyset_gotoday at 4:33 AM

Meteorites