Crash landing comets may have delivered molecules for life at the perfect speed

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-11-15 11:01

International

Photo by Justin Wolff on Unsplash

Our solar system might have been perfectly set out to encourage life on Earth, according to international researchers, who say the configuration of our planets increased the odds of comets delivering the materials we needed. Comets are thought to be a source of complex organic molecules needed for life, but the heat of a high-impact strike, when the comets come crash landing on us, would destroy them. Researchers calculated the speed of comets travelling through space and found that when neighbouring planets are close together, they can affect the orbit of comets and slow them down so they hit planets like Earth at a slower speed, allowing the molecules needed for life to survive. This scenario works better for planets around sun-like stars, but may also be possible around smaller stars, the team says.

Media release

From: The Royal Society

Crash to Earth - Can comets deliver prebiotic molecules to rocky exoplanets?

Cometary impacts on the surface of the early-Earth is one potential way to supply the complex organic molecules needed for the origins of life. For this to be successful, prebiotic molecules must survive the high temperatures experienced during impacts, and so low-velocity impacts are required. Here, we determine which types of rocky planets support low-velocity impacts by calculating how the central star and other, nearby, planets affect comets’ orbits. We find that this scenario works better for planets around Sun-like stars, but that low-velocity impacts are also possible around much smaller stars, provided other neighbouring planets are all closely-spaced.

Attachments

Note: Not all attachments are visible to the general public. Research URLs will go live after the embargo ends.

Research The Royal Society, Web page The URL will go live after the embargo lifts.

Journal/
conference: Proceedings of the Royal Society A

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Cambridge, UK

Funder: This study supported by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship (grant no. URF/R1/211421).

Media Contact/s

Contact details are only visible to registered journalists.