(June 22, 2011 at 2:11 pm)Chuck Wrote: According to a currently favored theory, the process of water leaching from rocks under geothermal heating concentrated the chemical raw material and geathered the heat energy required to support the chemical processes that created the building blocks of life. The ejection of this hot, chemical laden water into the cold ocean water above caused some of the dissolved chemicals to precipitate out into tufa like towers around the vents called "white smokers". The cellular mineral matrix structure of white smoker is thought to provide the environment that enable prototype of metabolism to naturally occur with the building blocks of life, and also provide the mold with which the first enclosed cell can form.
Note this theory postule that the formation of life on earth is almost pure driven by internal geothermal energy of the earth, and is largely independent of the conditions on the surface of the earth. All that is required is a hot core, which according to current planet formation theory any planet would acquire just by heat of accretion to say nothing of decay of long lived isotops, and some substantial body of relatively cool water beneath the surface to replenish a geothermal drive hydro-cycle.
By extension, this theory also predicts that life may be very common inside planets whose surface condition might appear hostile to life.
Is there an official name for this theory?
It would seem that with this theory life would be common across the galaxy (or have the potential to be anyway)? Perhaps more so than what we are led to believe?
I've always thought that the 'suitable conditions for life' may be different for different planets. There are organisms on earth living in incredibly harsh environments deep in the oceans. I think that life would certainly be capable of forming in such conditions as you've mentioned.
