SEEDS of life may have been sown on asteroids where warm and wet conditions, suitable to formation of some biomolecules - the building blocks of life - once prevailed, scientists say. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute propose a new theory -- based on a richer, more accurate image of magnetic fields and solar winds in the early solar system, and a mechanism known as multi-fluid magnetohydrodynamics to explain the ancient heating of the asteroid belts.
Although today the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is cold and dry. Scientists have long known that warm, wet conditions, suitable to formation of some life - seeding biomolecules, prevalid. Traces of biomolecules- found inside meteorits - which originated in the asteroid belt - could only have formed in the presence of warmth and moisture. One theory of the origin of life proposes that some of the biomolecules that formed on asteroid may have reached the surface of planets, and uncontributed to the origin of life. "The early Sun was actually diammer than the sun today, so in terms of sunlight, the asteroid belt would have been even colder than it is now. And yet we know that some asteroids were heated to the temperature of liquid water, the 'goldilocks' zone, which enable some of this interesting biomolecules to form,". Said researcher Wayne Roberge.
Roberge and co-author Ray Menzel revisit and refute one of two theories proposed decades ago to explain how asteroids could have been heated in the early solar system.
Both of the established theories - one evolving the same radioactive process that heats the interior of Earth, and the other involving the interaction of plasma (super - heated gases that behave somewhat like fluids ) and a magnetic field.
Roberge and Menzel reviewed the second theory, based on an early assessment of the young Sun and the premise that an object through a magnetic field will experience an electric field, which will in turn push electrical currents through the asteroid, heating the asteroid in the same way that electrical currents heat the wires in a toaster.
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