New research suggests “microlightning” exchanges among water droplets in Earth’s early atmosphere may have sparked the building blocks of life.
  • agingquickly@lemmy.worldEnglish
    30·
    5 days ago

    The researchers mixed ammonia, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrogen in a glass bulb, then sprayed the gases with water mist, using a high-speed camera to capture faint flashes of microlightning in the vapor. When they examined the bulb’s contents, they found organic molecules with carbon-nitrogen bonds. These included the amino acid glycine and uracil, a nucleotide base in RNA. - very cool!