Early life on Earth? – Sydsvenskan

Now think of an group of scientists that life began even earlier. 300 million years earlier, to be precise. This after reviewing 4.1 billion years old crystals of the mineral zircon that they found in the Australian desert.

Some of these crystals contain microscopic grains of graphite, ie carbon. And after analyzing the carbon chemical composition draws American scientists concluded that it characterized move on organic carbon. Ie residues from something that once lived.

– In this case, change the traditional image of the early Earth as a sterile, lifeless, hot planet was constantly bombarded by meteorites, says Elizabeth Bell, one of the researchers behind the study published in PNAS.