The Miller-Urey experiment
Amino acids form spontaneously in a flask simulating the early Earth.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 1 years
- Known to
- ± 1 year
- Era
- Contemporary, Holocene
Stanley Miller, a graduate student, passes electrical sparks through a mixture of methane, ammonia, hydrogen and water in 1952 and finds amino acids within days. The assumed atmosphere turned out to be wrong, and later reanalysis of his sealed samples found even more compounds than he reported. The result did not explain the origin of life, but it moved the question from philosophy into the laboratory.