 |
| Above, a Yellowstone National Park hot spring. Photo by Armand Vaquer. |
An interesting discovery was made in Yellowstone National Park which provides clues on the origins of life on Earth.
Science Alert reported:
Scientists have found a new lineage of microbes in the famously hot and acidic spring waters of Yellowstone National Park in the US, a discovery that promises to teach us more about the origins of life on our planet.
These single-cell organisms, from the archaea domain of life, seem to thrive in the thermal springs of Yellowstone where iron oxide is the main mineral.
Because the surface of Mars is made up of the same sort of materials, the researchers have named the lineage Marsarchaeota.
The conditions inside the springs of Yellowstone are thought to match the conditions on the early Earth, and that's why these Marsarchaeota microbes can be so helpful – they can show us how organisms sparked into life, and what role iron oxide may have played.
To read more, go here.
No comments:
Post a Comment