[adrian_b]

Atmospheric entry is completely relevant because some people have made the illogical claim that meteorites falling on Earth could have contributed with such complex organic substances, like the nucleobases, to the appearance of life on Earth.

The icy bodies from the outer Solar System that contain such organic substances are very easily vaporized during entry in the atmosphere of the Earth, so only a negligible fraction, if any, of the organic substances originally present in such a body would reach the surface of the Earth.

[foxglacier]

Wouldn't a big enough asteroid have an inner part which survives entry? You seem to be saying that it's impossible for any meteorite that might have these chemicals to not be completely vaporized which seems doubtful. Have you got a source?

[dylan604]

So you survived re-entry. Now, you get to survive impact. Seems like the energy released would also be damaging

[stouset]

Most asteroids have slowed to terminal velocity by the time they impact. It’s not nothing, but it’s mostly going to be relevant to physical processes and not chemical ones.

You might consider that scientists advanced enough in their field to be launching missions to retrieve dust from asteroids are actually aware of basic facts relevant to their field of study.

[Citizen_Lame]

Quality of comments massively dropped on the HN. It feels like Facebook now.

[CryptoBanker]

The Redditors have arrived

[lazide]

You might consider that even concepts like plate tectonics (which frankly are incredibly obvious if one just looks at a map) were considered ridiculous ideas by the most advanced experts in their field at one point. A point not that long ago.

I’m not saying the person you are responding too is right - but appealing to authority on something like this has a pretty bad track record.

[XorNot]

Generally speaking small molecules aren't damaged by concussive shock.

[dylan604]

I was thinking more of heat

[soco]

So we get organic vapors in the atmosphere right. Shouldn't that matter?

[adrian_b]

One theory is that the primitive Earth contained much smaller quantities of the volatile chemical H, C, N, O and S, which are the main constituents of water and of organic substances.

Then Earth collided with a great number of small bodies formed in the outer Solar System, which were rich in water and organic substances. This has modified the composition of the Earth towards the current composition. (Later Earth has lost a part of its hydrogen; because hydrogen is very light, it is lost continuously from the upper atmosphere, after water is dissociated by ultraviolet light; thus now the Earth has less water than around the appearance of life.)

This theory is likely to be true, so meteorites probably have brought a good part of the chemical elements most needed by living beings.

However, most of the pre-existing organic substances from meteorites must have decomposed and whatever has been preserved of them could not have had any significant role in the appearance of life here, because any living being would have needed a continuous supply with any molecules that it needed, otherwise it would have died immediately. Such a continuous supply could have been ensured only for molecules that were synthesized continuously in the local environment here, not for molecules arriving sporadically in meteorites and which would have been diluted afterwards over enormous areas, down to negligible concentrations.