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Looking into the possibility of volcanic lightning being the spark that ignited life on Earth (phys.org)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

In this new study, the researchers found evidence that nitrogen in the atmosphere could have been fixed by volcanic lightning interacting with ash.

I think I'm having some sort of language barrier here, what does it mean by "fixed"?

[–] WeevilFriend 5 points 9 months ago

I wasn't familiar with it either so here's something directly copy/pasted from Wikipedia:

Nitrogen fixation is a chemical process by which molecular nitrogen, which has a strong triple covalent bond, is converted into ammonia or related nitrogenous compounds, typically in soil or aquatic systems but also in industry. The nitrogen in air is molecular dinitrogen, a relatively nonreactive molecule that is metabolically useless to all but a few microorganisms. Biological nitrogen fixation or diazotrophy is an important microbe-mediated process that converts dinitrogen gas to ammonia using the nitrogenase protein complex. Nitrogen fixation is essential to life because fixed inorganic nitrogen compounds are required for the biosynthesis of all nitrogen-containing organic compounds, such as amino acids and proteins, nucleoside triphosphates and nucleic acids. As part of the nitrogen cycle, it is essential for agriculture and the manufacture of fertilizer.