• Question: how did life on earth start and do you think it is possiable for life on other planets

    Asked by hwoods to David, Luna, Mark, Melanie, Probash on 22 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Luna Munoz

      Luna Munoz answered on 22 Mar 2011:

      I don’t know how life began, but there are some researchers who think that life began with the energy from the hydrothermal vents, formed near cracks in the sea floor where the magma heats the water and forms a geyser, at the bottom of the sea. But we’re not sure how life began, really.

      Jupiter’s moon Europa, is one place where some scientists are casting their eyes, since it might have water and, under the icy exterior, the interior of the planet may be heated by gravitational forces, possibly giving it a large ocean with hydrothermal vents. Of course, we don’t know any of this for sure, so it needs to be discovered.

    • Photo: David Pyle

      David Pyle answered on 22 Mar 2011:

      For me, the most convincing arguments about where life started on Earth propose the emergence of life on the sea floor, close to some deep submarine volcanoes. Here, seawater circulating through fractures in the sea-floor emerge as warm ‘black smokers’, releasing (reduced) sulphur and iron-rich fluids to the ocean, which is oxidising and mildly acidic. In this environment, there are large changes in fluid temperature and composition which help to drive a whole spectrum of chemical reactions, culminating in the formation of amino acids and peptides as the first organic building blocks from which life may have developed. There are also alternative theories – life originating in an early reducing atmosphere, for example. No one really knows, yet, though!

      I see no reason in principle why life couldn’t have originated elsewhere by the same sorts of mechanisms.

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