Astrochemistry

Possibilities For Methanogenic And Acetogenic Life In A Molecular Cloud

By Keith Cowing

Press Release

December 4, 2023

Filed under astro-ph.EP, astrochemistry, extremophile, methanogen, molecular cloud, origin of life, panspermia

Possibilities For Methanogenic And Acetogenic Life In A Molecular Cloud — The Gibbs free energy released from the synthesis of hydrocarbons. — physics.pop-ph

There are life forms in space and the ancestor of Earth life came from interstellar space according to models like panspermia.

Naturally, life may also exist in molecular clouds. Here the author discusses the possibility of methanogenic life in Molecular Cloud with methane as the final metabolism product. According to the calculations, it is easy to see that the chemical reaction through methanogenesis can release sufficient free energy.

If methanogenic life exist in the pre-solar nebula, then they may be the ancestor of Earth’s life and there are already some tentative evidences by several molecular biology studies.

Comments: 8 pages, 1 figure. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2206.12816
Subjects: Popular Physics (physics.pop-ph); Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP); Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR); Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph)
Cite as: arXiv:2311.14291 [physics.pop-ph] (or arXiv:2311.14291v1 [physics.pop-ph] for this version)
Submission history
From: Lei Feng
[v1] Fri, 24 Nov 2023 05:49:54 UTC (38 KB)
https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.14291
Astrobiology

Keith Cowing

Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Station Payload manager/space biologist, Away Teams, Journalist, Lapsed climber, Synaesthete, Na’Vi-Jedi-Freman-Buddhist-mix, ASL, Devon Island and Everest Base Camp veteran, (he/him) 🖖🏻

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