Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Origins of life

Shock synthesis

Nature volume 467, page 281 (2010)Cite this article

Subjects

The idea that comets delivered organic molecules to the early Earth is disputed, because the extreme heat generated by the impact would probably have incinerated such a cargo. An alternative theory is that the heat and pressure of cometary impacts could have caused material on Earth's surface to react to form organic compounds. But the early Earth's chemical environment isn't thought to have been conducive to such reactions.

Impacts in which Earth was struck glancingly, however, would have generated much lower temperatures within cometary ice, allowing organic matter to survive. Goldman et al. therefore used quantum molecular dynamics to simulate events inside cometary ice during such collisions.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Authors
  1. Andrew Mitchinson
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Mitchinson, A. Shock synthesis. Nature 467, 281 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/467281a

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/467281a

Comments

Commenting on this article is now closed.

  1. Joe Miano

    Directed Panspermia! However, let's not forget that even for a small sized protein of a hundred or so amino acids, there are insufficient probabilistic resources in our universe for a functional peptide to arise from a prebiotic mix, to say nothing of the genetic code needed to ensure that said protein would continue to exist.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing