Physicists found an unexpected reason for the origin of life on Earth

American scientists modeled how ancient asteroid impacts fractured Earth's crust and created branching systems of hot underground springs within it — precisely the kinds of environments considered most suitable for the origin of life. The calculations were published in the journal AGU Advances.

Hydrothermal systems are networks of underground fractures through which superheated water saturated with minerals circulates. According to leading hypotheses, it was in these systems that the first organic molecules and simplest living structures may have emerged approximately four billion years ago. Today, the largest terrestrial hydrothermal system is Yellowstone National Park with its geysers and hot springs. The authors from the Southwest Research Institute used a specialized impact physics code that allows modeling how a high-velocity asteroid fractures solid rock and creates porous channels for water movement.

It was found that a single large impact during the early Earth era could generate hydrothermal activity 100 times more powerful than the entire Yellowstone Park today. The scale of fractures and their permeability — that is, their ability to allow water to pass through — were primarily determined by the size and velocity of the asteroid.

According to the calculations of lead author Amanda Alexander, the upper 8 kilometers of Earth's crust were highly permeable around 4.3 billion years ago and remained so until 3.5 billion years ago — precisely the time when the first reliable traces of life appeared.

"The bombardment was a catastrophe from the perspective of dinosaurs, but it likely created the environment for prebiotic chemistry," the researcher noted.