How did the Miller-Urey experiment impact the way scientists think about the origins of life?

Question

agreene · Answer

The Miller-Urey experiment attempted to set up the early earth chemical conditions to see if life could arrive without having been there before. If memory serves, they were able to get a few nucelo-bases and amino acids to form. This allowed them to conclude that if these conditions were present life could spring from nothing...

It is important to note, however, that their experiment was flawed and the conditions they made never actually existed to our knowledge. They did open the door for other such research and with some recent findings on asteroids (namely some nueclo-bases and amino acids) we can consider the possibility that the conditions they tested for existed elsewhere in the solar system.