Origin of life on Earth through iron particles from meteorites as catalyst https://www.mpg.de/20330250/0522-astr-iron-life-earth-150980-x
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich have proposed a new scenario for the emergence of the first building blocks of life on Earth around 4 billion years ago. With the help of experiments, they recreate the conditions of Earth’s primordial atmosphere and show how iron particles from meteorites and volcanic ash could have acted as catalysts to convert the carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere into hydrocarbons, as well as acetaldehyde and formaldehyde. These substances are the building blocks for organic molecules such as fatty acids, nucleobases (building blocks of DNA), sugars and amino acids, which in turn are the basic building blocks of life.
Particle size matters.