Theories of life tend to involve a spark – a lightning flash that provides the trigger for self replicating molecules.
This theory provides a bigger bang – that life originated near meteor craters.
I have a hunch that what matters is not so much the chemical details of meteor impact sites, but the fact that these impacts create a disruption that creates a system of thermodynamic non-equilibrium.
In other words they provide a sudden increase in free energy or negentropy that dissipates unevenly through the formation of systems that feed off negative entropy – life.
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tags: [entropy]