this post was submitted on 15 Jul 2024
205 points (96.4% liked)

science

14786 readers
54 users here now

A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.

rule #1: be kind

<--- rules currently under construction, see current pinned post.

2024-11-11

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 8 points 4 months ago

MMm... Probably not, at least in mechanism.

The issue is that of concentration. You need some kind of biogeochemical cycle that creates a concentration gradient. Otherwise the basic components are too diffuse to do anything meaningful.

I still lean into the "volitile ice balls" theory. NHx, NOx, Ox, etc. as volatile ices on asteroids in orbits where the iterate between freezing and melting. Moving between freezing and melting creates the biogeochemical cycle necessary to concentrate the basic elements sufficiently to be meaningful.