Did meteorites supply life with a vital spark?

• Autores: Michael Marshall
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 2911, 2013, pág. 13
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Every organism has built-in batteries in the format molecules that store energy from food until needed. These storage molecules are all based on phosphorus. Today the most common energy store is adenosine triphosphate (ATP), used by millions of complex organisms. It takes enzymes to make ATP and to release its energy, but the first organisms wouldn't have been sophisticated enough to make them. So researchers think a simpler storage molecule must have preceded ATP. According to Terry Kee of the University of Leeds in the UK, the first energy store could have been a molecule called pyrophosphite that contains phosphorus, oxygen and hydrogen. It has many of the same chemical properties as ATP but is more reactive so no enzymes would be needed.