Stephen Mojzsis, Research Professor of Earth Sciences at the ELKH Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences (CSFK), is a member of the international team of researchers who have shown that the first genetic material for life, ribonucleic acid (RNA), which is similar to DNA, is formed on basalt lava glass. The findings, published in the prestigious journal Astrobiology, could represent a breakthrough in the study of the origins of life on Earth.
4.35 billion years ago, abundant basalt lava glass was present on Earth, and basalt of this age is still found on Mars. Research led by Elisa Biondi, a molecular biologist at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution (FfAME), has shown that when ribonucleoside triphosphates are filtered through basaltic glass, RNA molecules 100-200 nucleotides in length are produced.
‟At that time, basalt glass was everywhere on Earth,” says Stephen Mojzsis. ‟In the few hundred million years after the formation of the Moon, frequent impacts combined with abundant volcanic activity on the young planet created basalt lava, the raw material for basalt glass. Impacts have contributed to the preservation of aquifers suitable for RNA formation on land,” the researcher explained.
The impacting objects were also carrying nickel, which, as the research team showed last year, forms nucleoside triphosphates from nucleosides and activated phosphates also found in lava glass. Borate minerals such as borax also assisted in the formation of triphosphates from basalt. Borate also promotes the formation of ribose, the ‟R” in RNA, from simple carbohydrates that must have been present in the early Earth’s atmosphere. These fell from the atmosphere to the surface as rain, carrying organic minerals stabilised by volcanic sulphur dioxide.
Impacting meteorites were key to the path from simple organic molecules to the first RNA. The iron-nickel nuclei of the impacting objects altered the atmosphere in such a way that it became suitable for the formation of RNA bases whose sequences stored genetic information. However, according to FfAME researcher Steven A. Benner, it is not yet clear how all the RNA building blocks took the same general shape.
The results of the study could also be a breakthrough in the search for life on Mars, where scientists believe the same minerals, glasses and similar impacts were present at the same time as on Earth. But the red planet did not undergo the continental drifts and plate tectonic processes that buried all rocks older than four billion years on Earth, so these relevant rocks are still present on the surface of Mars today. Recently, researchers have found every type of rock on the planet, including borate. ‟If life evolved in this simple way on Earth, it could have happened on Mars,” explained Steven A. Benner. ‟This makes it even more important to look for life on Mars as soon as possible,” the researcher stressed.