• Question: How did life begin?

    Asked by to Liam on 13 Jun 2014. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Liam Harvey

      Liam Harvey answered on 13 Jun 2014:

      Hi lbelbouche,
      Really interesting question! Abiogenesis (the word given to describe life arising from non-living matter) occurred about 3.5 million years ago. There are two main theories that i can think of:
      1) life occurred here on earth organised from non-living matter contained in a ‘primordial soup’ and
      2) life arrived from elsewhere in the universe in the form of bacteria or other single celled organisms on asteroids colliding with the earth.

      It’s important to remember that conditions on earth were very different 3.5 million years ago but through experiments that mimic those conditions we can observe what might have happened when life began. A famous experiment that you may be interested in is the ‘Miller–Urey’ experiment.

      Hope this helps!
      Liam

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