What conditions are required for starting life on Earth?
We can only make educated quesses at this time about what the conditions were like on the Earth over 3.8 billion years ago when the first bacterial organisms emerged. We know from geological evidence that free oxygen was absent in the atmosphere of the Earth up until a few billion years ago. We think that the atmosphere was rich in hydrogen-rich gases such as methane and ammonia because these are common gases in the atmospheres of the outer planets, and in interstellar space. We also know that liquid water was present because at the Earth’s distance from the Sun, we are in the zone where temperatures can allow water to exist. Laboratory experiments have shown that this combination of gases and temperatures can be cooked into very complex organic molecules including amino acids, which are the proverbial building blocks for DNA and life. During the period from the formation of the Earth, 4.5 billion years ago, and the first fossil bacteria 3.8 billion years ago, only 700 million years, l
Related Questions
- The earth is approximately 4600 million years old life has been on earth more or 500 million years Name two conditions that would have made living on the earth difficult in the first couple of million?
- What were the necessary conditions for life to begin on earth?
- What were the conditions like on Earth when life arose?
