New Delhi. Scientists searching for how life began on Earth have said that comets may have played a major role in it. Scientists also said that celestial objects are doing the same on other planets.
In a research published in ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society’, scientists have told how comets delivered the organic matter necessary for the start of life to the exoplanet. For a planet to sustain life, it must contain organic matter composed of elements such as carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge said that slow-traveling comets deliver these materials to planets outside our solar system. He said in his study that high speed would destroy these essential molecules.
Richard Anslow, one of the authors of the study, conducted on behalf of the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge, UK, said in a release detailing the findings, “We are learning more about the atmospheres of exoplanets all the time, so we can Wanted to see if there are planets where complex molecules can also be delivered by comets.” “It is possible that the molecules that gave rise to life on Earth came from comets, so the same may be true for planets elsewhere in the galaxy,” he said. Exoplanets are planets that orbit other stars and are far from our solar system.
But how did scientists reach this conclusion? According to the study, they used mathematical modeling techniques to analyze the probability of such a scenario occurring. The researchers concluded that for this to happen for a planet the size of our Sun, the planet must have a low mass and it is helpful for the planet to orbit close to other planets in the system.
In such a scenario, a comet could be pulled by the gravitational pull of one planet, then sent to another planet before impact. If this ‘comet-passing’ happened enough times, the celestial object would slow down enough for some of the prebiotic molecules to escape atmospheric entry. Prebiotic molecules contain chemical elements essential for life.
