Abstract
Origins of Life
Highlights
The experiment described in his paper demonstrated how, by using a simple apparatus designed to mimic the ocean-atmosphere system of Earth, could be used to synthesize essential biological compounds such as amino acids
If a similar type of process had taken place on early Earth, this could have produced the raw materials needed for the origin of life
In 1958, five years after the publication of the paper, Urey moved to La Jolla to help set up the new University of California, San Diego (UCSD) campus, whose headquarters were temporarily housed at Scripps
Summary
Soon after the accretion of Earth some 4.56 billion years (Gyr) ago, the decay of radioactive elements heated the interior of the young planet to the melting point of rocks. Earth was peppered with comets and asteroids at such a high rate that the impact-generated energy far exceeded the energy coming from the faint young Sun (Figure 1) These impacts probably blasted away any of the original atmosphere that remained when Earth accreted and at the same time helped to supply it with a new one. Tidal friction acting on the interiors of both Earth and the Moon soon dissipated the rotational energy in the system This slowed Earth’s rotation, and it slowed the less massive Moon’s rotation even more until it turned only one face toward Earth as it does today. As Miller and I pointed out in 1994, the possibility exists that without an atmosphere rich in
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