Life on Earth may be owed not only to water, but also to massive superflares that occurred during the Sun’s hyperactivity at the very beginning of the Solar System’s formation. This discovery was discovered during a recent survey.

Superflames likely eject charged particles into Earth’s primordial atmosphere, leading to the formation of large quantities of amino acids and carboxylic acids, known as the “building blocks” for proteins and therefore life. In a new study, a team of scientists using a particle accelerator found that cosmic rays likely created the conditions necessary for life to flourish.

“Most researchers ignore galactic cosmic rays because they require specialized equipment, such as particle accelerators. “We were lucky to have access to the accelerator to test our hypothesis,” said Kensei Kobayashi, professor of chemistry at Yokohama National University in Japan and lead author of the study.

The largest coronal mass ejection (CME) recorded in human history was the Carrington event of 1859, which released the same amount of energy as a 10 billion one-megaton atomic bomb. But this flare is nothing compared to the superflares that occurred more than 4 billion years ago – they were thousands of times more powerful and violent.

Today, superflares are believed to occur only once every 100 years. However, a 2016 study shows that during the first 100 million years of Earth’s existence, superflares were much more frequent, occurring every three to ten days.

Lightning or super flashes

To model the role of superflares in the evolution of our atmosphere, the scientists combined carbon dioxide, molecular nitrogen, water, and varying amounts of methane in a gas mixture that was likely present in Earth’s early atmosphere. They then bombarded the mixture with protons from a small particle accelerator. At the same time, they fired another set of the same mixtures as simulated lightning to test the theory that lightning can also cause the necessary chemical reactions.

They found that both experiments resulted in the formation of amino acids and carboxylic acids, which are the basic building blocks for proteins. However, proton mixing required only 0.5% methane concentration, while lightning discharges required 15% methane to form these building blocks to detectable levels.

At the moment, the question of what exactly serves to create the building blocks of life remains open: lightning, solar flares, or both at once.