Tiny electrical discharges between water droplets may have ignited the spark of life on Earth.

Dr. Frankenstein may not have needed a lightning bolt to spark life after all. A new Stanford study suggests that constant “microlightning” between water droplets could have provided the jolt that jumpstarted life on Earth.

One of the biggest mysteries in evolution is how life emerged from non-living matter. Scientists believe early Earth contained a “primordial soup” of essential biological ingredients, but a catalyst was needed to trigger chemical reactions that transformed inorganic compounds into organic ones.

A long-standing theory proposes that lightning strikes supplied this spark. The groundbreaking 1952 Miller-Urey experiment simulated early Earth’s atmosphere by sending electric jolts through a flask containing water and gases. This process successfully produced amino acids and other key biological molecules.

However, this hypothesis has challenges. If the process occurred in oceans, the chemicals would have been too diluted to drive widespread life formation. In shallow ponds, lightning strikes would have been too rare to have a significant impact.

Stanford scientists now propose a more consistent and widespread energy source—microlightning. When water droplets are sprayed into the air by waves, waterfalls, or other natural processes, they can develop small electric charges. As oppositely charged droplets move close to each other, tiny electrical discharges occur, igniting complex chemical reactions without requiring an external power source.

Microlightning Sparks Life’s Building Blocks in a New Prebiotic Synthesis Theory

“Microelectric discharges between oppositely charged water microdroplets generate all the organic molecules previously observed in the Miller-Urey experiment,” said Richard Zare, senior author of the study. “We propose this as a new mechanism for prebiotic synthesis of life’s building blocks.”

To test this idea, researchers updated the Miller-Urey experiment. They filled a tank with gases simulating early Earth’s atmosphere—nitrogen, methane, carbon dioxide, and ammonia—then sprayed fine water droplets into the mix. Upon closer inspection, they found that larger droplets tended to carry a positive charge, while smaller ones carried a negative charge. As basic physics dictates, when these droplets passed close together, tiny electric sparks jumped between them.

Although these discharges were too fast to observe with the naked eye, high-speed cameras confirmed their existence. More importantly, in this simulated early atmosphere, water sprays alone ionized the air and triggered the formation of organic molecules containing carbon-nitrogen bonds, such as hydrogen cyanide, glycine, and uracil. These molecules serve as fundamental building blocks for proteins and DNA.

“Unlike lightning, which is unpredictable and intermittent, water sprays are abundant on Earth,” the researchers explain. “Our findings suggest an alternative pathway for the abiotic formation of carbon-nitrogen bonds.”

If correct, this theory means that ocean waves, waterfalls, and other natural water sprays could have continuously produced organic compounds across the planet. Over time, these molecules may have assembled into the first lifeforms, reshaping our understanding of how life began.

Read Original Article: New Atlas

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