Oh so it's still a theory? Hasn't it always been?
From Charles: Some planetesimals survived into and beyond the planet-forming period, raising the ((((((possibility)))))) that one of these primitive bodies ((((((may have))))) seeded Earth with life.
"Not all planetesimals are going to be involved in the kinds of catastrophic collisions that would cause them to go into a plasma or otherwise completely denature anything that was created," Elkins-Tanton said April 11 at the Breakthrough Discuss conference at the University of California, Berkeley.
"Some things are going to fall — like Chelyabinsk, for example — back onto the surface of a temperate planet," she added, referring to the 65-foot-wide (20 meters) object that exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in February 2013. "So, there is that ((((((possibility)))))) in the end."
Elkins-Tanton said this (((((basic idea))))) grew out of a course she taught at ASU in the fall of 2016. At the beginning of the semester, she asked the students to consider whether life could have arisen on small bodies. Over the next few months, the students, Elkins-Tanton and her co-author on the newly presented work, Stephen West, explored this ((((((possibility)))))), as well as a number of other questions that stemmed from that core question.
Life as we know it requires three main ingredients: liquid water, organic molecules and an energy source. Planetesimals, which formed within 1.5 million years of the solar system's birth, (((((likely featured)))))) all three, Elkins-Tanton said.
For example, more than 35 different amino acids have been identified in the Murchison meteorite, an ancient space rock that fell to Earth in southern Australia in 1969.
Murchison is so full of organics that it "smells like an oil well," Elkins-Tanton said. "What could be a better place for the advent of life than a nice, warm, wet piece of Murchison? So, (((((that's the idea))))) that we're starting with."
Such processes (((((may have))))) created habitable environments beneath the planetesimals' rocky surfaces. And these environments (((((likely))))) lasted for relatively long stretches.
For example, modeling work performed by Elkins-Tanton and West, who's now at the California-based company Metis Technology Solutions, (((((suggests)))) that small planetesimals — those up to 30 miles (50 kilometers) wide — (((((could have))))) supported liquid water underground for about 15 million years.
And an earlier study Elkins-Tanton conducted with Ben Weiss and Maria Zuber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that larger bodies (((((could have))))) remained wet for even longer — (((((perhaps))))) 50 million years or so.
(((((It's unclear))))) if this window is long enough for life to get going, Elkins-Tanton stressed. That's because ((((((we don't know))))) how long that window has to be. "I'm going to bravely assert that ((((((we really have no idea)))))," she said.
So the last few evolutionist I've spoken to lately said that evolution was now past the theory stage and it is now "almost fact". Lol......
Right!!!!!!!! Not even close according to this info. They can't even figure it out here on earth so I guess they are hoping to find the answer way out there in the finale frontier.
