Missing ingredient for life finally found on a comet:

P

paddoboy

Valued Senior Member
https://newatlas.com/space/phosphorus-comet-67p-churyumov-gerasimenko-rosetta/
By Michael Irving
November 26, 2020
Researchers have detected phosphorus on a comet – thereby completing the grocery list of elements that are essential for life. The discovery was made in data from comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko by the Rosetta probe a few years ago, strengthening the idea that life’s ingredients were delivered to Earth by comets

Six chemical elements make up almost all biological molecules on Earth: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur (CHNOPS). How our home planet managed to become so bountiful in all of them has long been a mystery, but one of the leading hypotheses is that they were brought here long ago by comets, asteroids, and impacts with proto-planets.

more at link............

the paper:

https://sci-hub.st/https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article-abstract/499/2/1870/5911597

The detection of solid phosphorus and fluorine in the dust from the coma of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko

ABSTRACT
Here, we report the detection of phosphorus and fluorine in solid particles collected from the inner coma of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko measured with the COmetary Secondary Ion Mass Analyser (COSIMA) instrument on-board the Rosetta spacecraft, only a few kilometers away from the comet nucleus. We have detected phosphorus-containing minerals from the presented COSIMA mass spectra, and can rule out e.g. apatite minerals as the source of phosphorus. This result completes the detection of life-necessary CHNOPS-elements in solid cometary matter, indicating cometary delivery as a potential source of these elements to the young Earth. Fluorine was also detected with CF+ secondary ions originating from the cometary dust.
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Of course it is still quite plausable that all the elements necessary for life were on the early Earth and part of the accreted dust and stellar remnants from which Earth formed.
I mean back in that period, smaller bits of stuff were whizzing about helter skelter, left, right, and center, every which way!
But an Interesting article none the less and worth considering in discussing the formation of life via Abiogenesis.
 
POVphysics2 said:
Atheists will fundamentally never be able to figure out how life began, IMO.
Click to expand...
That's the job of scientists matey, not Atheists.
What I'm actually waiting for is for some God botherer/ID fanatic to show some, convincing evidence for a supernatural being.:D
That'll be the Day" to quote an old Buddy Holly hit!!
 
POVphysics2 said:
Uh, no. You have to start with prokaryotes.
Click to expand...
Right, that's where it starts, very simply and naturally.
Actually it truly starts with Eukaryotes which employ DNA as well as RNA, and which replaced the prokaryotes as a more favorable survival technique.

But the example holds true. An unfertilized egg is an inanimate biochemical molecule. Add the genetic code of male sperm to the genetic code of the female egg and the egg transforms into a living organism, growing, dividing, with the biochemical properties of both parents.

A clear example of abiogenetic transformation.
 
Write4U said:
But the example holds true. An unfertilized egg is an inanimate biochemical molecule. Add the genetic code of male sperm to the genetic code of the female egg and the egg transforms into a living organism, growing, dividing, with the biochemical properties of both parents.
Click to expand...

Oops

Every human sperm and egg is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, alive

https://abort73.com/abortion/are_sperm_and_egg_cells_alive/

As mentioned is the article

Life is continuous

Sorry :(

:)
 
Michael 345 said:
Oops

Every human sperm and egg is, beyond the shadow of a doubt, alive

https://abort73.com/abortion/are_sperm_and_egg_cells_alive/

As mentioned is the article

Life is continuous

Sorry :(

:)
Click to expand...
Not really. Please understand we are talking about unfertilized eggs. They cannot grow or divide unless fertilized by male sperm and the DNA coding is completed.

From your link:
Are Sperm and Egg Cells Alive?
A fundamental change occurs to the sperm and egg during fertilization.
 
Write4U said:
Right, that's where it starts, very simply and naturally.
Actually it truly starts with Eukaryotes which employ DNA as well as RNA, and which replaced the prokaryotes as a more favorable survival technique.

But the example holds true. An unfertilized egg is an inanimate biochemical molecule. Add the genetic code of male sperm to the genetic code of the female egg and the egg transforms into a living organism, growing, dividing, with the biochemical properties of both parents.

A clear example of abiogenetic transformation.
Click to expand...

Sorry, I'm just not jiving with the current flow of ideas.
 
What facts dictate....
[1] Abiogenesis is the only scientific answer to how life arose from chemical reactions.
[2] As yet we do not understand the exact pathway.
[3] Any ID/Creationist nonsense is unscientific and a result of myth being handed down through generations after generations.
[4] The theory of the evolution of life is fact.
[5] The stuff of life appears throughout the Universe.
[6] Even though most scientists accept for the reasons in [5] that life should exist elsewhere, as yet we do not have any evidence of any life off this Earth.
 
Write4U said:
Not really. Please understand we are talking about unfertilized eggs. They cannot grow or divide unless fertilized by male sperm and the DNA coding is completed.

From your link:
Are Sperm and Egg Cells Alive?
A fundamental change occurs to the sperm and egg during fertilization.
Click to expand...

The egg (i.e. this single cell) remains alive for up to 3 weeks after the hen has released it

https://www.quora.com/Is-an-egg-a-l...hay-Joshi-176?ch=10&share=e0f537b4&srid=3MMEc

This addresses your point

Life does not arrive from a dead ova and a dead spermatozoa combination

Most of the cells in any living entity are unfertilised.

Are you saying most of the cells in a living entity are dead?

Life is a continuum, not a stop / start process

:)
 
POVphysics2 said:
Sorry, I'm just not jiving with the current flow of ideas.
Click to expand...
Sorry, my answer was hasty and ill-considered I'll get back with you on that....:)
Michael 345 said:
Most of the cells in any living entity are unfertilised.
Click to expand...
C'mon Michael, mitosis is so fundamental to the act of original fertilization of the mother's egg, I am surprised you need refreshing on that.

Your cell division today stared the moment your mother's egg was fertilized (70 years ago?) The original shared DNA from your father's sperm and your mother's DNA is the instruction of how cell divides, what it eventually becomes and when the growth instruction stops.
 
This is all a bit misleading. There is plenty of phosphorus on Earth. Lack of terrestrial phosphorus is not the problem.

The problem, apparently, is that under the redox conditions applying on Earth, it is all in fully oxidised form, namely as phosphate minerals. These have very low solubility in water, so the mystery is (or was) how could enough phosphorus arise in water-soluble forms suitable to take part in pre-biotic reactions. The answer seems to be that more reduced oxidation states of phosphorus provide more options for compounds with appreciable solubility, such as phosphites (rather than phosphates). These would not be found on Earth, but could be found in comets and meteorites. This seems to be what has now been confirmed.

There is a paper with a lot more details about all this here: https://www.pnas.org/content/105/3/853
 
Perhaps this may revive this thread,

Signs of Life Found on Venus
Published: September 25, 2020

Narrator: Scientists might have just discovered signs of life on Venus.
Clara Sousa-Silva: It feels game changing.

Sara Seager: It is so unexpected but I never thought in my life that it would be something we should either look for, that we would find in Venus.

Narrator: Venus is about the size of Earth, but blanketed by a thick atmosphere. The surface reaches more than 850 degrees—hot enough to melt lead—and the atmosphere is laced with sulfuric acid.

Sousa-Silva: I mean, Venus used to be the popular planet to look for life.

Narrator: Numerous spacecraft—like Magellan—have flown to the planet, but few have landed.

Sousa-Silva: And then yes, in the eighties we did send a few probes that quite traumatically melted and that put us off. I get it. I would have, I would have not continued to try. The surface of Venus remains absolutely abominable for life.

Seager: It would be terrible. It's so hot there. So, we wouldn't survive at all. The sulfuric acid droplets, they are deathly to any life form. If you put any kind of life into concentrated sulfuric acid, it'll just dissolve, dissolve instantly.

Even though Venus' surface is way too hot for any kind of life, there's this Goldilocks zone. It’s a layer in the atmosphere that is not too hot, not too cold, but just right for life.

Sousa-Silva: And that's exactly where we found phosphine.

Narrator: Phosphine, the little molecule that might change how we understand life in the universe.

Sousa-Silva: Phosphine is known for being a really terrible, deadly molecule. It was used as a chemical warfare agent in the first World War. And sadly, more recently by ISIS. All of which, because it's a really effective killer.

Narrator: Phosphine is such a good killer of us because it reacts so easily with the oxygen that our bodies need to survive. But for life-forms that don’t require oxygen, phosphine isn’t toxic, and some actually produce it.

Seager: Phosphine is associated with microbial life. It's found in oxygen-free environments, such as wetlands and swamps. It's associated with feces, so we know for sure that phosphine is associated with life here on Earth.

Sousa-Silva: So a lot of my work was going, "Oh, if this life on Earth produces phosphine, could other non-oxygen loving alien life produce it too?"

My original work had said, if you find phosphine on any terrestrial planet, it can only mean life. And that wasn't an outrageous claim until recently.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/signs-life-venus/
 
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