The porous mineral structures of alkaline hydrothermal vent chimneys have been proposed as natural concentrators of dissolved organic molecules, potentially addressing the longstanding dilution problem in deep-sea origin-of-life hypotheses.
Membranes are usually treated as passive containers in origin-of-life models, confining prebiotic chemistry, buffering diffusion, and sustaining gradients.
Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, possesses a dense N2–CH4 atmosphere driving complex organic chemistry. The interplay among photochemistry, aerosol formation, organic cloud condensation, and surface deposition makes Titan a natural laboratory […]
The modern Martian surface is cold, dry, oxidizing, and perpetually bombarded with radiation, rendering it generally inhospitable to life as we know it.
The origin of life may have emerged through physical mechanisms that enable molecular organization and self-assembly. Building on Alexander Oparin’s concept of coacervate droplets, liquid–liquid phase separation (LLPS) offers a […]
The vast chemical space of possible small molecules, estimated at 1060 compounds for molecules composed of just C, N, O, and S, is only sparsely occupied by biology.
The origin(s) of life (OoL), which has puzzled scientists for centuries, remains a major scientific challenge in the 21st century.
The first detected member of a new astronomical class is often not representative of the underlying population, but instead reflects the selection effects of the observing technique that found it.
Nitrogen-bearing polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (N-PAHs) are key precursors to complex organic molecules in both the interstellar medium and the nitrogen-rich planetary atmospheres.
Sulfur is one of the most abundant elements in the Universe, yet the sulfur budget inferred from the observed sulfur-bearing molecules in dense cores is significantly lower than expected.
