How Did It All Begin: The Self-assembly of Organic Molecules and the Origin of Cellular Life

1999 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 221-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
David W. Deamer
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
Self Assembly ◽  
Organic Molecules ◽  
Molecular Nitrogen ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Nearby Star ◽  
Cellular Life ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Galaxy ◽  
The Origin Of Life

Movies are the myths of late-20th century western culture. Because of the power of films likeETto capture our imagination, we are more likely than past generations to accept the possibility that life exists elsewhere in our galaxy. Such a myth can be used to sketch the main themes of this chapter, which concern the origin of life on the Earth.Imagine that 4 billion years ago, intelligent beings evolved on an Earth-like planet in the solar system of a neighboring star. After ten million years of evolution, they have solved the problems of interstellar travel and aging. Virtually immortal family groups set out to explore the galaxy and almost immediately discover a solar system associated with a nearby star only 80 light years away from their home planet. They find that the third planet is rich in the primary elements of life - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen - which are present in the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2), molecular nitrogen (N2) and water vapor (H2O). They decide to spend a few centuries studying this planet, which they consider to be a possible model of their own primordial world as it was four billion years in their past.

How Did It All Begin?: The Self-Assembly of Organic Molecules and the Origin of Cellular Life

2002 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 179-194
Author(s):  
David W. Deamer
Keyword(s):  
Origin Of Life ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Self Assembly ◽  
Organic Molecules ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
The Self ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Cellular Life ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Origin Of Life

Movies are the myths of late-20th century western culture. Because of the power of films likeETto capture our imagination, we are more likely than past generations to accept the possibility that life exists elsewhere in our galaxy. Such a myth can be used to sketch the main themes of this chapter, which concern the origin of life on the Earth.

Pollination of exoplanets by nebulae

2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 223-228 ◽  
Author(s):  
W.M. Napier
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
Molecular Cloud ◽  
Oort Cloud ◽  
Habitable Zone ◽  
Habitable Planets ◽  
Star Forming ◽  
Star Forming Regions ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Galaxy ◽  
Micro Organisms

AbstractThe Solar System passes within 5 pc of star-forming nebulae every ∼50–100 million years, a distance which can be bridged by protected micro-organisms ejected from the Earth by impacts. Such encounters disturb the Oort cloud, and induce episodes of bombardment of the Earth and the ejection of microbiota from its surface. Star-forming regions within the nebulae encountered may thus be seeded by significant numbers of microorganisms. Propagation of life throughout the Galactic habitable zone ‘goes critical’ provided that, in a typical molecular cloud, there are at least 1.1 habitable planets with impact environments similar to that of the Earth. Dissemination of microbiota proceeds most rapidly through the molecular ring of the Galaxy.

The astrobiological case for renewed robotic and human exploration of the Moon

2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 191-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
I.A. Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Lunar Exploration ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Impact Cratering ◽  
Early Atmosphere ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Galaxy ◽  
The Origin Of Life ◽  
Human Exploration ◽  
The Impact

An ambitious programme of lunar exploration will reveal much of astrobiological interest. Examples include: (i) better characterization of the impact cratering rate in the Earth–Moon system, with implications for understanding the possible ‘impact frustration’ of the origin of life; (ii) preservation of ancient meteorites blasted off Earth, Mars and Venus, which may preserve evidence of the early surface environments of these planets, as well as constraining models of lithopanspermia; (iii) preservation of samples of the Earth's early atmosphere not otherwise available; (iv) preservation of cometary volatiles and organics in permanently shadowed polar craters, which would help elucidate the importance of these sources in ‘seeding’ the terrestrial planets with pre-biotic materials; and (v) possible preservation of extraterrestrial artefacts on the lunar surface, which may permit limits to be placed on the prevalence of technological civilizations in the Galaxy. Much of this valuable information is likely to be buried below the present surface (e.g. in palaeoregolith deposits) and will require a considerable amount of geological fieldwork to retrieve. This would be greatly facilitated by a renewed human presence on the Moon, and may be wholly impractical otherwise. In the longer term, such lunar operations would pave the way for the human exploration of Mars, which may also be expected to yield astrobiological discoveries not otherwise obtainable.

scholarly journals HOŘAVA–LIFSHITZ GRAVITY: TIGHTER CONSTRAINTS FOR THE KEHAGIAS–SFETSOS SOLUTION FROM NEW SOLAR SYSTEM DATA

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (06) ◽  
pp. 1079-1093 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. IORIO ◽  
M. L. RUGGIERO
Keyword(s):  
Black Hole ◽  
Solar System ◽  
Lower Bounds ◽  
Modified Gravity ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Supermassive Black Hole ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Test Particles ◽  
The Galaxy ◽  
System Data

We analytically work out the perturbation Δρ induced by the Kehagias–Sfetsos (KS) spacetime solution of the Hořava–Lifshitz (HL) modified gravity at long distances on the two-body range ρ for a pair of test particles A and B orbiting the same mass M. We apply our results to the most recently obtained range residuals δρ for some planets of the solar system (Mercury, Mars, Saturn) ranged from the Earth to effectively constrain the dimensionless KS parameter ψ0 for the Sun. We obtain [Formula: see text] (Mercury), [Formula: see text] (Mars), and [Formula: see text] (Saturn). Such lower bounds are tighter than others existing in the literature by several orders of magnitude. We also preliminarily obtain [Formula: see text] for the system constituted by the S2 star orbiting the supermassive black hole (SBH) in the center of the galaxy.

scholarly journals The early Earth under a superflare and super-CME attack: prospects for life

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (S320) ◽  
pp. 409-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir Airapetian ◽  
Alex Glocer ◽  
Guillaume Gronoff
Keyword(s):  
Molecular Nitrogen ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Solar Energetic Particle ◽  
Early Earth ◽  
Polar Cap ◽  
Mhd Simulations ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Origin Of Life ◽  
Mass Ejection ◽  
The Impact

AbstractKepler observations suggest that G-type stars produce powerful flares suggesting that the early Earth may also have been exposed to frequent and energetic solar explosive events generated by the young Sun. We show that powerful coronal mass ejection (CME) events associated with superflares impacting the Earth magnetosphere with a frequency of 1 event/day. What was the impact of superflares, CMEs and associated solar energetic particle (SEPs) events on the atmospheric erosion of the young Earth and habitability? In this paper we discuss our three-dimensional (3D) magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations that show that frequent and energetic CMEs from the early Sun continuously destroyed the sub-solar parts of Earth's magnetosphere at heights < 1.25 RE. This suggests that CME shock accelerated energetic protons are capable of penetrating into the polar cap region and breaking atmospheric molecular nitrogen, the major ingredient of the early Earth atmosphere, into atomic nitrogen. Photo-collisional dissociation of molecular nitrogen and carbon dioxide creates reactive chemistry that efficiently produces nitrous oxide and hydrogen cyanide, the essential molecule in prebiotic life chemistry. This raises an possibility that frequent super-CMEs could serve as a potential catalyst for the origin of life on early Earth.

scholarly journals Delivery of Complex Organic Compounds from Planetary Nebulae to the Solar System

2009 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 161-167 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sun Kwok
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
Organic Compounds ◽  
Chemical Structure ◽  
Planetary Nebulae ◽  
Early Earth ◽  
Early Solar System ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Planetary Satellites ◽  
The Galaxy ◽  
Complex Organic

AbstractInfrared spectroscopic observations of planetary nebulae and proto-planetary nebulae have shown that complex organic compounds are synthesized in these objects over periods as short as a thousand years. These compounds are ejected into the interstellar medium and spread throughout the Galaxy. Evidence from meteorites has shown that these stellar grains have reached the Solar System, and may have showered the Earth during the heavy bombardment stage of the Early Earth. In this paper, we discuss the chemical structure of stellar organic grains and compare them to the organic matter found in meteorites, comets, asteroids, planetary satellites, and interplanetary particles. The possibility that the early Solar System was chemically enriched by organic compounds ejected from distant stars is presented.

scholarly journals Synchronism of the Events on the Sun and the Earth - A Sign of External Influence on the Solar System

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Gravitational Field ◽  
Solar System ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Additional Energy ◽  
Gravitational Effects ◽  
External Influences ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Galaxy ◽  
Celestial Bodies ◽  
Endogenous Activity

To solve fundamental and applied problems, it is useful to detect signs of external influences on the Solar system from the synchronous responses of the Earth’s shells, using a systemic and interdisciplinary analysis of solar-terrestrial relations - taking into account, along with solar activity and GCR fluxes, the endogenous activity of the Earth due to gravitational effects on the Earth with the sides of the Moon, the Sun and other celestial bodies of the Solar system during its barycentric motion in the gravitational field of the Galaxy, as well as the effects of perturbations on the Solar system as a whole. At the same time, the mechanism, energy, cyclicity, synchronism, change in the shape of the Earth and gravity, polar asymmetry and jump-like manifestations of solar-terrestrial relations, instability of the Earth’s daily rotation become explainable. The Solar system is subject to external influences of gravity of the heavy planets of Jupiter and Saturn in the course of its barycentric motion in the gravitational field of the Galaxy, as well as the bringing in solar system of additional energy when exposed to a heterogeneous interstellar environment.

Assembling Life

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David W. Deamer
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
Origin Of Life ◽  
Fresh Water ◽  
Organic Compounds ◽  
Hot Springs ◽  
Early Earth ◽  
Cellular Life ◽  
Habitable Planet ◽  
The Origin Of Life ◽  
A Site

In Assembling Life, David Deamer addresses questions that are the cutting edge of research on the origin of life. For instance, how did non-living organic compounds assemble into the first forms of primitive cellular life? What was the source of those compounds and the energy that produced the first nucleic acids? Did life begin in the ocean or in fresh water on terrestrial land masses? Could life have begun on Mars? The book provides an overview of conditions on the early Earth four billion years ago and explains why fresh water hot springs are a plausible alternative to salty seawater as a site where life can begin. Deamer describes his studies of organic compounds that were likely to be available in the prebiotic environment and the volcanic conditions that can drive chemical evolution toward the origin of life. The book is not exclusively Earth-centric, but instead considers whether life could begin elsewhere in our solar system. Deamer does not propose how life did begin, because we can never know that with certainty. Instead, his goal is to understand how life can begin on any habitable planet, with Earth so far being the only known example.

From One to Astronomical

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karel Schrijver
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
Scientific Method ◽  
State Of The Art ◽  
Planetary Systems ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Galaxy ◽  
Fictional Worlds ◽  
Recent Insight

Where centuries ago one could be burned at the stake for speculating about distant worlds, the modern scientific method has made us realize that there are planetary systems around most of the over a hundred billion stars in the Galaxy. Learning that the Earth was not the center of the Solar System represented a true revolution in our thinking, but the recent insight that the Solar System is but one of an immense number of similar systems was smoothly adopted by our culture, which had already been exposed to many fictional worlds over the preceding dedades. This introductory chapter describes these changes, woven into the story of how astrophysics has grown from the work of a few isolated individuals into a globe-spanning, fast-publishing enterprise with state-of-the-art observatories, from master–pupil teaching to university-based education, and from learning from often ancient books to modern observation-based investigations.

Origin of Life

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David W. Deamer
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
Origin Of Life ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Scientific Reasoning ◽  
Habitable Planets ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Point Of No Return ◽  
The Origin Of Life

Our knowledge of our solar system has passed the point of no return. Increasingly, it seems possible that scientists will soon discover how life is created on habitable planets like Earth and Mars. Scientists have responded to a renewed public interest in the origin of life with research, but many questions still remain unanswered in the broader conversation. Other questions can be answered by the laws of chemistry and physics, but questions surrounding the origin of life are best answered by reasonable extrapolations of what scientists know from observing the Earth and its solar system. Origin of Life: What Everyone Needs to Know® is a comprehensive scientific guide on the origin of life. David W. Deamer sets out to answer the top forty questions about the origin of life, including: Where do the atoms of life come from? How old is Earth? What was the Earth like before life originated? Where does water come from? How did evolution begin? After he provides the informational answer for each question, there is a follow-up: How do we know? This question expands the horizon of the whole book, and provides scientific reasoning and explanations for hypotheses surrounding the origin of life. How scientists come to their conclusions and why we can trust these answers is an important question, and Deamer provides answers to each big question surrounding the origin of life, from what it is to why we should be curious.

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