abiogenesis

Is named abiogenesis to generation from lifetime from inert matter. It is a process that involves the development of a living being starting from a simple organic compound.

A quick look at the etymology of this term shows us, on the one hand, the prefix to-, which in this case refers to the absence of something, or serves to deny a concept, more precisely of bio, that is to say "life"; in the last part of the word we have the concept genesis, which we can translate as «principle u source«. In summary, it is possible to deduce that abiogenesis speaks of two moments: one in which there is no life; another, in which it has arisen from inert elements.

Abiogenesis is studied by science to try to find an explanation for the creation of life on the planet Land. Experts believe that this process developed between 4.4 billion Y 2700 million years behind, although there are no scientific certainties.

These two points on the timeline are far from whimsical: it was approximately 4.4 billion years ago that, according to scientific researchers, the steam of water found for the first time the right conditions to condense; on the other hand, various evidences suggest that the most remote signs of life date back to 2.7 billion years ago.

It is important to bear in mind that abiogenesis supposes the scientific explanation of what the religion mentioned as divine or supernatural. In other words: science, with abiogenesis, seeks the natural principle that led to the emergence of life, while religion attributes creation to the action of one or more gods.

Already in the Ancient Greece there were thinkers who, in a way, spoke of abiogenesis. With the advance of scientific development, indications began to be found of how this might have developed. process through complex studies carried out on rocks, meteorites and fossils.

Broadly speaking, abiogenesis maintains that a natural process allowed, from abiotic molecules, the development of simple organic molecules. These molecules, in turn, led to protobionts, species of protocells that allowed the irruption of the prokaryotic cells.

To reach the point where reconstruction of the the event or events that made possible the emergence of life on our planet, scientists must rely on different approaches, which are based on laboratory and field studies.

In the laboratory chemical tests are carried out, and certain processes are also observed astrochemicals (Astrochemistry studies the composition of diffuse material and stars in interstellar space) and geochemicals (geochemistry is the study of the dynamics and composition of terrestrial chemical elements) that generate the constituents of life, according to current notions of the conditions of the natural environment that the Earth presented so many billions of years ago.

Between the hypothesis most relevant of abiogenesis is the iron-sulfur world theory. It was enunciated by a German chemist named Günter Wächtershäuser between 1988 and 1992, and proposes that genetics was preceded by a primitive form of metabolism, if we understand this last term as a cycle of reactions capable of producing energy that other processes can take advantage of. According to this theory, each metabolic cycle produced compounds of increasing complexity, and all of this took place on the surface of some minerals.

It cannot be omitted from mentioning that some theories argue that abiogenesis had its starting point beyond Earth. In this case, it is argued that meteorites that fell on our planet brought with them the first organic molecules.