It Is Because Of The Sun That Life Emerged on Earth?

Life emerged on Earth because of the massive and powerful storms that erupted on the surface of the Sun nearly 4 billion years ago. These are the findings of a new study conducted by NASA astronomers.

The researchers based their findings on the observations made by NASA's Kepler space telescope. According to the researchers, coronal mass ejection from a relatively young sun warmed up the sun and established conditions suitable for the emergence of life.

It is believed that the first organisms on Earth appeared nearly 4 billion years ago. This has always puzzled researchers because the sun was then only 70 percent brighter as it appears today. Then, what exactly did warm up Earth to keep the water in liquid state?

One thing is to believe that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane might have trapped heat. While volcanic activity on Earth might have produced carbon dioxide, but it would not have compensated for a total of 30 percent deficit in the sun's energy.

Methane and water vapors are other gases capable to trapping heat, but they are not sufficient as well. Another greenhouse gas is nitrous oxide, which is 30 times as powerful as carbon dioxide when it comes to trapping heat. However, it is quite difficult to break molecular nitrogen and it is important for it to break down so that it can interact with other chemicals to form compounds necessary to sustain life.

In the recent study, the researchers figured out that the coronal mass ejection from the sun might have penetrated through the weak magnetic field of Earth and led to a reaction that converted molecular nitrogen to hydrogen cyanide and nitrous oxide.

While nitrous oxide trapped heat and kept the atmosphere warm enough for water to stay in liquid form, hydrogen cyanide helped form amino acids, the essential building blocks of life.

The complete details of the study have been published in the journal Nature Geoscience.