eli5 – If RNA was created by a soup of chemicals, is it possible that it’s being randomly created in pockets around the world? and could those random rna strands create life out of nowhere?

Question

Sorry If these questions are stupid, I was just randomly thinking about how rna started.

In: 329

Answer 1

RNA is a fragile molecule that is easily broken down by RNAse enzymes that are all over the place in the environment from other organisms. So it’s hard for new RNA to emerge and last very long in a significant way, given how abundant life already is on earth.

But who knows! There might be some places on earth with relatively little life and good enough conditions for RNA to form, that would be an incredible discovery.