Mimicking an impact on Earth’s early atmosphere yields all 4 RNA bases
The hypothesis that goes something likeRNA bases -> RNA -> proteins -> lifeseems to sidestep the issue of metabolism, i.e. what did the first organism eat? What was its energy source?When I picture life arising from nothing, the most plausible scenario seems to involve increasingly intricate chemical reactions that initially do absolutely nothing other than create longer and longer staircases for energy to step through through before dissipating and becoming useless. In other words, you start with metabolism first, and then get structure later.It seems plausible that the earliest proto-metabolisms didn't use RNA or resemble modern life in any way. There might have been a succession of proto-metabolisms before getting to anything we would recognize as life. They would likely not have left any fossil record.Does this make any sense to anybody?