Raining Life

Tonight we have a meteor shower, the debris from a comet falling to Earth.

There may be profound significance to this sort of event.

First of all, it's highly probable. For gravitational reasons, all of the Sun's orbiters, over time, have come to lie essentially in a single plane. Given the long orbit of the comet, and the nearly circular one of Earth, it's inevitable that our paths will cross. And the radiant heat of the Sun guarantees that the ice ball leaves its outer skin behind each pass through. What's more intriguing is what it has been doing while on the far reach of its orbit.

It's been a cold object sweeping through a hot gas cloud, with such basic components of life as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. This cloud is not very thick, which is why the comet doesn't melt and meet obliteration there. But it does sweep through,
quenching the variety of chemical reactions that transiently occur in very hot environs.

Life didn't necessarily start here. The basic blocks, the amino acids, may first have
rained down in just such comet debris, distant ancient cousins to the light show tonight.