Submitted by dolekanteel t3_111eq94 in askscience
d0meson t1_j8ie6x7 wrote
Reply to comment by ChemicalRain5513 in Is it possible that abiogenesis is still happening right now on earth? by dolekanteel
This seems somewhat unlikely because of compatibility of chirality. Many molecules aren't the same as their mirror image (just like your right and left hands), and chirality is what distinguishes these molecules from their mirror image (a "right-handedness" or "left-handedness").
All life on Earth uses a set of compounds with the same chirality. Enzymes are built to catalyze reactions that exclusively produce the correct chirality of product. In fact, for some of these molecules, their mirror images are actually toxic.
In contrast, non-biological reactions generally don't have such a strict chirality preference. In general, you produce a mix of both "handednesses" in most reactions not involving something extremely selective like an enzyme.
So in abiogenesis conditions, the selection of our current chirality rather than a different one was likely due to chance. If it happened multiple times, it's unlikely that it would have given the same chirality every time.
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