Lightning Strikes Vital to Origin of Life

Lightning strikes have played a part in theories on the origin of life since Darwin. Discover how a new study sheds more light on the role of lightning in bringing life to our planet.

We had just finished dinner, and we were relaxing in the living room of the cottage. Before we even had time to be frightened by it, lightning struck a tree in the front yard, incinerating it.

It was all over before anyone realized what had happened. The tree was about twenty feet from the house and now looked like a burnt matchstick.

That’s the tremendous power of lightning, and thankfully, we rarely see it from that close. Lightning can destroy and create.

Lightning Can Destroy and Create

Charles Darwin had this in mind when he wrote his famous passage to his friend, J.D. Hooker. “If (and oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all sorts of ammonia & phosphoric salts-light, heat, electricity etc. present, that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes…”

Electricity was one of the critical elements that Darwin imagined for the origin of life. No doubt, he…