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

Here is a thought. I can synthetically make RNA given i have the correct reagents. Adenine, Guanine, Cysteine, and Uracil structurally aren’t to complicated. It is hard to say how they can be spontaneously made from just a barren waste land.

But in our organic rich environment where crude oil has millions of different organic compounds previously made from past life, RNA is most definely apart of that mixture. Just by sheer chance these structure can generate.

However the question is, how does it start when you have a Mars like environment. You need the exact right conditions to get yourself from CO2 a common source of carbon to these chemicals. But I would say it is possible given millions of years and different reactions. Its not like it uses any different elements on earth the core elements are common its just the structure is unique to life itself.

So yes RNA is being generated spontaneously but it is just from biochemicals already being in the solution rather than when it first generated in conditions lacking biomolucles.