We know living things come from other living things. But how did the VERY FIRST living thing get here? Did it just pop out of nowhere? Can scientists make new life from scratch? If we took all the ingredients for life and put them on another planet, would life start there too after a long, long time?
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More on the primordial soup idea:
Starting with just atoms and adding any combination of heat, time, pressure/vacuum you can end up with simple molecules. Water (H2O). Carbon Dioxide (CO2). Methane(CH4). Ammonia(NH3). These are all very simple molecules that show up everywhere in the observable universe. Given more time, heat, pressure, maybe add in a little lightning and these can interact to form more complex molecules. Even amino acids. Given more time, amino acids can start to interact into self replicating molecules. Simple self replicating molecules can evolve. Those that are better at self replicating, make more copies of themselves. And so life evolved from these self replicating molecules getting better and better at self replicating.
For more, read up about the Miller-Urey experiment. They combined those simple molecules like ammonia, water, and methane with temperature and electricity(lightning) to show they could spontaneously creat simple amino acids.
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