Joey

The Time traveling Scientist

exploring

the beginning of life

Hi, my name is Joey. Today, I am learning about how life began on early Earth in my science class. I love science and it is my favorite subject. I have a secret that many people don't know about.

I am a scientist. But not just any ordinary one. I can time travel! My handy magnifying glass lets me go back into the past whenever I want to. I prefer to go back in time to test scientific evidence and conduct experiments.

Today in school I learned about how life began and was introduced to Earth. But how did the first organisms on the only known home to life in the universe develop? Let me show you the incredible theories I learned!

The first theory had a "shocking" start, the second theory is utterly chilling, and the last theory is out of this world! Come travel with me back in time using my time machine in my play tent!

For this theory we have to go way back to the first lightning spark. It's said that the lightning may have provided the spark needed for life to begin. Let's learn more!

In 1953, Stanley Miller & Harold Urey created an experiment where they created organic compounds by applying an energy source. They called it the Miller-Urey experiment!

They tested the idea that conditions on early Earth favored chemical reactions and synthesized organic compounds from inorganic precursors.

The experiment suggests that lightning helped create the key building blocks of life on Earth in its early days.

Or maybe life began at the bottom of the sea. Keep reading to to learn how!

These primitive cellular pumps would have powered life-giving chemical reactions. Recent research adds weight to this idea that life arose deep in the ocean within warm, rocky structures called hydrothermal vents. These are porous geological structures produced by chemical reactions between solid rock and water.

A new theory proposes the ancient life-forms that gave rise to all life on Earth left deep-sea vents because of their "invention" of a tiny pump.

Let's look for evidence of life in rocks below the sea floor which might have provided the right environment for life to start.

Alkaline fluids from the Earth’s crust flow up the vent towards the more acidic ocean water, creating natural proton concentration differences remarkably similar to those powering all living cells. Cells then later learned how to produce their own gradients, and escaped the vents to colonize the rest of the ocean and eventually the planet.