Nebula-Relay Hypothesis: The Chirality of Biological Molecules in Molecular Clouds

Abstract

The chiral puzzle of biological molecules is thought to be closely related to the origin of life and is still a mystery so far. Previously, we proposed a new model on the origin of life, Nebula-Relay hypothesis, which assumed that the life on Earth originated at the planetary system of the Sun’s predecessor star and then filled in the pre-solar nebula after its death. As primitive lives existed in the pre-solar nebula for a long time, did the chiral biomolecules form during this period? We explore such a possibility in this work and find that the ultra-low temperature environment of molecular clouds is beneficial to generating the chiral polymer chain of biological molecules.

Editorial: Mars analogs: Environment, habitability and biodiversity

“…However, the organic molecules that contributed to evolution may not have been formed by a geochemical process. Feng (2022) proposes that the ultralow temperature of the molecular cloud that was the precursor of our Solar System may have contributed to the synthesis of homochiral polymers with a slight variation in the chirality of the monomers. The result suggests that cosmic evolution prior to our Solar System may place some constraints on the biochemical nature of all life on Earth, with potential implications also for Mars.…”

Features of molecular self-assembled helix peptide nanotubes based on some amino acids molecules and their dipeptides: molecular modelling studies

“…Among the possible explanations for the reasons for such homochirality of biomacromolecules, there is the Vester-Ulbricht hypothesis that the homochirality of life is a consequence of precisely the spatial asymmetry of the weak interaction of elementary particles [19]. Based on this hypothesis, the authors of a recent work [20] evaluate the possibility generation of homochiral polymers in the environment of molecular clouds of the cosmic nebula. Chiral polymers can be induced in the environment of such a molecular cloud at ultra-low temperatures in deep space, since the polarization and stereoselectivity of chiral biomolecules here is much less than that of homeothermic ones.…”