Extreme life forms and the origin of life

The above-mentioned extreme life forms discovered in recent years are shaped by the extreme environment of black chimneys, and this extreme environment has long existed in the primitive ocean. Therefore, the original life should have existed in the primitive ocean long ago.

5.3.1 primitive marine environment

to understand the primitive marine environment, we must first know the environment at the beginning of the formation of the earth. So what was the environment like at the beginning of the earth? This should start with the "big bang" hypothesis. The "Big Bang" hypothesis holds that about 5 billion years ago, there was a supernova in the universe, which burned out the nuclear fuel and began to shrink rapidly under its own gravity, becoming an ultra-high-density star-a star with a mass of 25 million tons only the size of a matchbox. When the temperature reached 1 billion degrees Celsius, the star exploded. After the explosion, countless hot fragments and dust, large and small, accompanied by heat waves and super-strong shock waves, crashed into the surrounding galaxies and nebulae, disrupting the normal operation of the stars, resulting in mutual collisions and a chain explosion. The shock wave of the Big Bang produced a powerful force, which made the fragments, stars and nebulae close to the explosion center gather, contract and heat up, and gradually formed a hot new star, one of which was the largest and hottest star with a diameter of more than 1.392 million kilometers, which was the original sun. At the same time, a solar system centered on the sun and dominated by eight planets was formed. On May 8, 27, NASA released the video of the supernova explosion with the highest energy and brightness so far: before the big explosion, the volume of the supernova was 15 times larger than that of the sun, and the brightness of the light emitted during the explosion exceeded the brightness of the light emitted by 5 billion suns. The supernova was 24 million light years away from the earth, and its explosion lasted for 2 days. This video made the "Big Bang" from a hypothesis to a reality.

Supernova Big Bang

After the Big Bang, in the process of rapid cooling, excessive water vapor escaped from the earth's surface, and the water vapor condensed and turned into rain. The original rain poured on the earth's surface on an unimaginable scale and gathered into a primitive ocean. However, the interior of the earth is still in a state of high-temperature melting, and these high-temperature melting substances are scattered outward along the surface cracks. Whether in the original "continent" or in the original "ocean", there are volcanic groups everywhere. At that time, the ocean floor was more "lively" and "spectacular" than the mid-ocean ridge today. Therefore, the environment of primitive ocean must be much more extreme than that of black chimney today. However, as time goes on, they will gradually approach.

5.3.2 origin of life

extreme life forms living in black chimney environment have the following characteristics: ① they all belong to prokaryotic cells. ② Their genes are very primitive, and their gene sequencing shows that they are close to the oldest life form on earth, and they are in the source position of biological phylogeny, representing the same ancestor of all living things. (3) Their life forms may be an initial form of the origin of life.

According to the above materials, we have sufficient scientific basis to speculate that primitive life originated from archaea. But are bacteria also life? What is life?

life is a process, a process of whether inorganic energy can be converted into functional energy (biological energy), a process of continuously converting low-level biological energy into high-level biological energy, and a process of reproducing from generation to generation through its DNA. Therefore, bacteria are of course life.

The current research has confirmed that life can not only convert solar energy into biological energy, but also convert non-solar energy (chemical energy, radioactive energy, etc.) into biological energy. For example, at the end of January, 29, when discussing whether there is life on Mars, Lisa Pratt, an expert from Indiana University, said: The research team he participated in found a microorganism 3,2 meters below the surface of a gold mine in South Africa, and it did not rely on solar energy at all. Its energy came from the energy generated by radioactive decay of nearby rocks. This is also a very extreme example. Therefore, the original life form should be found in the most extreme environment and in the primitive ocean.