RE: The Origin Of Life?
June 22, 2011 at 2:40 pm
(This post was last modified: June 22, 2011 at 2:55 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(June 22, 2011 at 2:20 pm)Napoleon Wrote: 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.
It's often called the "Iron-Sulfur world theory". It was worked out by Günter Wächtershäuser, William Martin, Michael Russell and others. This theory would indeed hypothesize that even life broadly biochemcially similar to our own can be much more ubiquitous than hitherto imagined because it is origin and existence can be totally divorced from what previously been called goldie-locks zone. Life not very far different biochemcially from ours could even arise on a isolated rougue planet without any star to give its surface warmth.
As to suitable conditions for life, there are organisms on earth that live 9 miles deep in the ground and metabolize rock for energy. Such life would be so hard to eradicate that nothing we can imagine that is far short of the total destruction of the earth would kill it.
