[krapp]

I don't think you understand what "very much possible" means. It isn't a synonym for "I very much believe."

We have actual evidence of evolution as a real and active process and can (and have) studied and mapped that process across species and across time - including in humans - and we find absolutely no evidence of nor the necessity for extraterrestrial influence anywhere.

And even if some flavor of is assumed true for the sake of argument, that still wouldn't somehow negate evolution. It's entirely possible for life to have an extraterrestrial origin and to have evolved on Earth after that origin, having first evolved somewhere else.

[datadeft]

I am not saying it would negate evolution. I am saying origins of life could be extraterrestial and then life goes on a evolutionary process.

[literalAardvark]

This finding invalidates the idea that Bennu was seeded with molecules by biological life: biological life would have created chiral molecules, but the mix on Bennu is racemic, which suggests that the molecules were created by run of the mill geological processes and simply wouldn't require extraterrestrial seeding.

Tldr the finding is that abiogenesis may be easier to get to than previously thought.

[pfdietz]

> Tldr the finding is that abiogenesis may be easier to get to than previously thought.

It doesn't really mean that, though. We already knew synthesis of simple amino acids was pretty easy. Urey-Miller did that decades ago. Making the easy part of a multistep process easier doesn't make the whole process much easier.

IMO, the rate-limiting step for OoL is later, when by some means the enormous complexity barrier is reached between abiotic stuff like this and the simplest self-replicating system capable of evolution. Of the latter, the simplest we know (the most stripped down cell) still contains billions of atoms.

[oh_fiddlesticks]

The Urey-Miller experiments did it, but not without investigator interference to separate the product from the toxic byproduct. The experiments have aged poorly and offer no solutions to abiogenesis.

[pfdietz]

How separated were these asteroidal amino acids from toxic byproducts?