Privileged Planet: meteorite's contribution of nitrogen (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, December 03, 2023, 17:47 (356 days ago) @ David Turell

Absolutely necessary for life:

https://phys.org/news/2023-12-meteorites-source-nitrogen-early-earth.html

"Micrometeorites originating from icy celestial bodies in the outer solar system may be responsible for transporting nitrogen to the near-Earth region in the early days of our solar system. That discovery was published in Nature Astronomy by an international team of researchers, including University of Hawai'i at Mānoa scientists, led by Kyoto University.

"Nitrogen compounds, such as ammonium salts, are abundant in material born in regions far from the sun, but evidence of their transport to Earth's orbital region had been poorly understood.

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"Like all asteroids, Ryugu is a small, rocky object that orbits the sun. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's Hayabusa2 spacecraft explored Ryugu and brought material from its surface back to Earth in 2020. This intriguing asteroid is rich in carbon and has undergone significant space weathering caused by micrometeorite collisions and exposure to charged ions streaming from the sun.

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"...Using an electron microscope, they found that the surfaces of the Ryugu samples are covered with tiny minerals composed of iron and nitrogen (iron nitride: Fe4N).

"'We proposed that tiny meteorites, called micrometeorites, containing ammonia compounds were delivered from icy celestial bodies and collided with Ryugu," said Toru Matsumoto, lead author of the study and assistant professor at Kyoto University. "The micrometeorite collisions trigger chemical reactions on magnetite and lead to the formation of the iron nitride."

"The iron nitride was observed on the surface of magnetite, which consists of iron and oxygen atoms. When magnetite is exposed to the space environment, oxygen atoms are lost from the surface by the irradiation of hydrogen ions from the sun (solar wind) and by heating through micrometeorite impact. These processes form metallic iron on the very surface of the magnetite, which readily reacts with ammonia, creating ideal conditions for synthesis of iron nitride."

Comment: a very reasonable analysis. Nitrogen is required for life to form. It conforms with my thesis God prefers to evolve His creations and a perfect Earth did evolve over time and was evolved further by the appearance of and effects of life.