Unfortunately, the idea that there was methane in the atmosphere of the primitive Earth was just an assumption… “One achievement and two sins” left by the shocking “Miller experiment” (Kobayashi Norimasa) | Bluebacks | Kodansha ( 1/3)

“The first life on Earth was born from the RNA world.”

There is a problem with this extremely popular scenario. The probability that RNA materials would connect correctly and become a “finished product” on the primitive Earth, where life did not exist, is extremely close to zero. If so, why did life come into being?

In order to think about this difficult problem rationally without seeing it as “God’s work,” the author proposes a second opinion on the “origin of life.” The thrilling interpretation was summarized in an easy-to-understand manner by Norimasa Kobayashi, known as a leading expert on astrobiology.Between life and non-life“is. To commemorate the publication of this book, we are introducing the highlights of the book several times.

This time, following on from last time, we will provide an explanation of the “mirror experiment” and its effects.

*This article is a restructured and re-edited version of “Between life and non-life: Did a “miracle” occur on Earth?” (Bluebacks).

Amino acids are easy to make!

Let’s go back to 1953 when Miller’s paper was published. This paper attracted the interest of many scientists. No one thought that chemical evolution experiments could be completed in just a few days.

After this, many groups began to experiment with chemical evolution using Miller as a model. First, regarding materials, I mentioned that there was a conflicting theory that the primordial Earth’s atmosphere contained a lot of carbon dioxide and a theory that it contained a lot of methane, but after Miller’s results, many people became pro-methane. I did.

However, doing the same thing as Miller does not result in a paper. Therefore, until around 1970, experiments were reported one after another that attempted to create amino acids using energy other than the lightning discharge that Miller had considered.

The first energy that was considered was volcanic heat. Kaoru Harada (1927-2010) and Sidney Fox (1912-1998) at the University of Miami created a reactor that used heat instead of electric discharge. However, the temperature of real lava is approximately 1000 degrees Celsius, and almost all organic matter is destroyed when heated to this temperature. But what if the atmosphere cooled quickly after coming into contact with the lava?

In order to see this, Harada and Fox assembled a device as shown in the figure “Harada and Fox’s heating experiment”.

The gas, which is a mixture of methane, ammonia, and water vapor in a large flask, passes through the high-temperature furnace heated to approximately 1000℃ in the lower right, immediately exits the furnace, and accumulates in the small flask in the lower left. . At this time, products also accumulate. After repeating this cycle, they analyzed the liquid in the small flask and found that amino acids were formed.

What this experiment revealed was that the trick was to quickly cool the gas mixture once the energy was provided by the hot lava. In fact, in Miller’s experiment, the temperature is high within the spark, but if it deviates from that temperature, it cools down rapidly.