Exercises: The origin of life

Describe what early Earth was like at the time life emerged: its atmosphere, its oceans and its geological activity.

Look at the diagram of the apparatus with which Miller and Urey carried out their famous experiment in 1953. Identify what the parts labelled ?1 to ?4 represent (the gas mixture, electrical discharges, boiling water and the collection trap), explain what conditions of early Earth they simulated in the laboratory and what type of molecules they obtained.

What is astrobiology? Explain what it studies and why searching for life outside Earth helps us understand the origin of life on our planet.

For centuries, it was believed that living organisms could arise from non-living matter: worms from decaying meat or mice from dirty clothes. Describe what the hypothesis of spontaneous generation consisted of, and explain how it was experimentally disproved by Redi with his jars of meat, Spallanzani with boiled broths and, above all, Pasteur with his swan-neck flasks.

Current hypotheses on the origin of life include chemical synthesis in the "primordial soup", panspermia and hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor. Summarise them briefly and then order and explain the steps necessary to go from individual molecules to the first cell: appearance of hereditary material capable of copying itself, formation of complex organic molecules, appearance of metabolism and formation of membranes.

Why is the search for life on other worlds so focused on finding liquid water? Explain which properties of water make it so important for living things.

An exploration rover on Mars photographs a sedimentary rock with finely layered and domed structures, visually identical to terrestrial stromatolites from $3\,500$ million years ago.

1. a) Justify why the presence of superimposed layers alone is not enough to confirm the existence of past life on Mars and what geochemical or isotopic analysis (for example, the ratio between $^{12}\text{C}$ and $^{13}\text{C}$) should be carried out to provide evidence for a biological origin rather than a purely inorganic process.
2. b) Explain the biological and environmental significance that stromatolite-forming cyanobacteria had in altering the atmosphere and the precipitation of iron in the oceans of early Earth.

About $2\,400$ million years ago, the activity of cyanobacteria triggered the "Great Oxidation Event". Although today we consider oxygen an essential gas, for the biosphere of that time it was a catastrophic event.

1. a) Justify why free oxygen ($O_2$) was lethal to the dominant microorganisms of that era and what key adaptive advantage was gained by organisms that developed aerobic cellular respiration.
2. b) Explain the mechanism by which the increase in $O_2$ reacted with atmospheric methane ($CH_4$) and triggered an almost total global glaciation (Huronian glaciation).
3. c) Deduce how the subsequent formation of the ozone layer ($O_3$) from this oxygen was a determining factor for the later colonisation of the continental surface by living organisms.

A space agency is planning a mission to detect potential metabolically active (non-fossil) microbial life forms in the Solar System and has the following data on three candidates:

• Mars: Surface exposed to intense ultraviolet radiation and oxidizing perchlorates. Presence of seasonal methane (CH₄) peaks in the atmosphere and possible accumulations of liquid brines kilometers deep.

• Europa: Global saline ocean beneath an ice sheet 15 to 25 km thick, in direct contact with a rocky seabed subjected to tidal forces from Jupiter's gravity.

• Enceladus: Global subsurface ocean that expels continuous geysers into space through fractures at the south pole. Water vapor, salts, organic macromolecules, and dihydrogen gas (H₂) have been measured in these plumes.

Answer the following questions with reasoned arguments:

1. a) Using terrestrial mid-ocean ridge ecosystems as an analogous model, justify why the co-detection of H₂ and water in the geysers of Enceladus is considered a key indirect piece of evidence for habitability by chemosynthetic microorganisms.
2. b) Compare the biological and engineering difficulties of collecting viable samples on Europa versus Enceladus. Justify which of the two worlds offers a strategic advantage for a probe that can only perform orbital flybys without landing on the surface.
3. c) If the rover exploring Mars were to detect amino acids in the surface regolith, explain why this finding would not conclusively confirm the existence of past or present life, and what chemical property (chirality) scientists should analyze to obtain strong, though not definitive, evidence of whether their origin is biological or purely abiotic.

Unit challenge. Could the history of life repeat itself beyond our environment? Become an astrobiologist and write a reasoned technical report assessing the biological potential of a real exoplanet based on the origin of the cosmos and the solar system.

1. Obtaining real data: Access the official NASA Exoplanet Archive or the Planetary Habitability Laboratory. Select a confirmed rocky exoplanet (for example, TRAPPIST-1 e or TRAPPIST-1 f) and retrieve its data: mass, radius relative to Earth, and orbital distance ($d < 1.0\text{ AU}$), comparing them with Earth ($1.0\text{ AU}$).

2. Cosmochemical tracing: Design a table connecting the fundamental bioelements ($H$, $C$, $O$, $N$, $P$) present in rocky planets with their physical origin: the Big Bang or stellar nucleosynthesis prior to the birth of their planetary system.

3. Report on the origin of life: Write a reasoned proposal (maximum $250$ words) arguing whether the conditions of that system would allow a prebiotic evolution similar to Earth's (primitive atmosphere, hydrothermal vents, and liquid water).

The following will be assessed:

• Rigorous extraction and proper comparison of real astronomical data.

• Coherent connection between the cosmic origin of elements and bioelements.

• Sound scientific justification of the viability of the origin of life on the exoplanet.