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Thursday, 21 May 2009 18:19 |
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A study funded by NASA revealed that intense asteroid bombardment which happened about 4 billion years ago could be the cause of the boost of early life on Earth.
The study focused on a particularly cataclysmic occurrence known as the Late Heavy Bombardment, or LHB. Researchers claim that this event lasted about 20 to 200 million years.
Research based on computer modeling project which is designed to study heating of Earth by bombardment, which was led by Stephen J. Mojzsis and Oleg Abramov from Colorado University, revealed that LHB could have sterilized Earth surface and still there were conditions for microbial life in surface and underwater environments.
"These findings are significant because they indicate that if life had begun before the LHB or some time prior to 4 billion years ago, it could have survived in limited refuges and then expanded to fill our world", said Michael H. New, scientist from NASA's Exobiology and Evolutionary Biology program.
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