Russian scientists have produced a new vision of the hypothesis put forward by researchers from the Berkley University and National Laboratory. According to it, meteorite bombardment could have played a key role in life evolution on the Earth.

It’s worth reminding that a group of researches from Berkley had analyzed the history of craters formation on the Moon. Having investigated the Moon’s surface structure speckled by craters, they marked that approximately 400 mln years ago the frequency of clashes of various space bodies (comets and meteorites) with the Moon surface and, consequently, with the Earth surface, drastically grew and resulted in formation of craters on the Moon.

According to the Berkley’s specialists, this extensive bombardment by space bodies coincided by date with the beginning of the Cabrian period in which life on the Earth started appearing in various forms. Researchers supposed that since clashes with meteorites initiated some kind of “stress” of the beings, then lived on the Earth, which became more diversified and universal. An example with fruit-bearing trees cutting to increase their productivity was brought forward to justify this version. In other words, powerful strikes of space bodies could have made first life forms develop in new directions.

Some Russian scientists have introduced a new hypothesis about the coincidence of the early Cambrian period with an extensive meteorite attack of the Earth.

They think that such falling space objects as comets, bore inside biological origins of life and very likely viruses as well, while meteorites contained chemical compounds harmful for living beings. And namely these viruses and harmful chemical compounds, in the scientists’ opinion, initiated active mutations of the simplest organisms, lived then, on a genetic level. As a result of this mutation, new forms of life were aborning. Weaker and nonviable organisms died at once, while more advanced and developed beings and plants continued growing, breeding and perfecting.

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