Ok, it takes protein to make DNA and DNA for PROTEIN to replicate. They would have to spontaneously evolve at the same time, know how to interact, and work within whatever cell or space they spontaneously evolved in. If you can believe that, then your a Darwinist. If you have a brain and realize it is impossible, then your a realist. Welcome to sanity.
New stars go through a lengthy period where the spew out vast amounts of water ~ at 50,000 atmospheres pressure (a trivial pressure in the water being shed by those stars) water forms into a double-helix molecule ~ much like at 0 degrees C it forms crystals.
You actually don't need to use the theory of evolution to come up with gigatons of DNA-like structures ~ all you need are double-helix molecules, sufficient degrees of activity to allow for contact with other elements and molecules (seeding the nascent DNA water molecules with the bridges needed for self-replication) and you are virtually guaranteed to have DNA that can make proteins.
The next stage ~ self-assembly ~ is probably not as random as some would like things to be ~ in fact, probably isn't random at all. DNA, once it's cut loose in the proper environment to enable it's higher forms to survive, then simply builds itself into remarkably similar creatures.
Again, that's not evolution ~ just teeny-tiny machines doing what they are supposed to do.
In the end the Universe is filled with life ~ and, given the resilience of this hardy molecule, all the Universes in the Multi-verse itself are also filled with life.
Complex biological molecules and protocells
Sidney W. Fox experimented with abiogenesis and the primordial soup theory. In one of his experiments, he allowed amino acids to dry out as if puddled in a warm, dry spot in prebiotic conditions. He found that, as they dried, the amino acids formed long, often cross-linked, thread-like, submicroscopic molecules now named “proteinoids”.
In another experiment using a similar method to set suitable conditions for life to form, Fox collected volcanic material from a cinder cone in Hawaii. He discovered that the temperature was over 100 °C (212 °F) just 4 inches (100 mm) beneath the surface of the cinder cone, and suggested that this might have been the environment in which life was created—molecules could have formed and then been washed through the loose volcanic ash and into the sea. He placed lumps of lava over amino acids derived from methane, ammonia and water, sterilized all materials, and baked the lava over the amino acids for a few hours in a glass oven. A brown, sticky substance formed over the surface and when the lava was drenched in sterilized water a thick, brown liquid leached out. It turned out that the amino acids had combined to form proteinoids, and the proteinoids had combined to form small, cell-like spheres. Fox called these “microspheres”, a name that subsequently was displaced by the more informative term protobionts. His protobionts were not cells, although they formed clumps and chains reminiscent of cyanobacteria. They contained no functional nucleic acids, but split asexually and formed within double membranes that had some attributes suggestive of cell membranes.
An amino acid has been found on a comet for the first time, a new analysis of samples from NASA's Stardust mission reveals. The discovery confirms that some of the building blocks of life were delivered to the early Earth from space.
Amino acids are crucial to life because they form the basis of proteins, the molecules that run cells. The acids form when organic, carbon-containing compounds and water are zapped with a source of energy, such as photons – a process that can take place on Earth or in space.
Previously, researchers have found amino acids in space rocks that fell to Earth as meteorites, and tentative evidence for the compounds has been detected in interstellar space. Now, an amino acid called glycine has been definitively traced to an icy comet for the first time.
"It's not necessarily surprising, but it's very satisfying to find it there because it hasn't been observed before," says Jamie Elsila of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, lead author of the new study. "It's been looked for [on comets] spectroscopically with telescopes but the content seems so low you can't see it that way."
Comets and asteroids are thought to have bombarded the Earth early in its history, and the new discovery suggests they carried amino acids with them.
"We are interested in understanding what was on the early Earth when life got started," Elsila told New Scientist. "We don't know how life got started ... but this adds to our knowledge of the ingredient pool."
Jonathan Lunine of the University of Arizona agrees. "Life had to get started with raw materials," he told New Scientist. "This provides another source [of those materials]."
The amino acid was found in samples returned to Earth by NASA's Stardust mission, which flew by Comet Wild 2 in 2004 to capture particles shed by the 5-kilometre object.
The samples in Elsila's study came from four squares of aluminium foil, each about 1 centimetre across, that sat next to a lightweight sponge-like "aerogel" that was designed to capture dust from the comet's atmosphere, or coma.
The researchers reported finding several amino acids, as well as nitrogen-containing organic compounds called amines, on the foil in 2008. But it was not clear whether the discoveries originated in the comet or whether they were simply contamination from Earth.
The researchers spent two years trying to find out – a painstaking task since there was so little of the comet dust to study. In fact, there was not enough material to trace the source of any compound except for glycine, the simplest amino acid.
With only about 100 billionths of a gram of glycine to study, the researchers were able to measure the relative abundance of its carbon isotopes. It contained more carbon-13 than that found in glycine that forms on Earth, proving that Stardust's glycine originated in space.
"It's a great piece of laboratory work," says Lunine. "It's probably something that couldn't have been done remotely with a robotic instrument – it points to the value of returning samples."
Elsila says she would like to see samples returned not just from a comet's coma but from its main body, or nucleus. "There might be more complex mixtures [of amino acids] and higher levels of them in a comet nucleus," she told New Scientist.
Europe's Rosetta spacecraft should help shed light on the issue. The first mission designed to orbit and land on a comet's nucleus, it will reach the Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014 after a 10-year journey from Earth.
Journal reference: Meteoritics & Planetary Science (forthcoming)