"Did the Sun and our Solar System form in the first half or last half of our galaxy's history?"
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A Laboratory Investigation on the Origin and Evolution of Life (3)
PI: Isik Kanik
This project will be the very first experimental test of Russell’s hypothesis on the origin of life, viz., that life’s hatchery is a submarine hydrothermal mound. Life is held to emerge as a response to a chemical disequilibrium between atmospheric CO2 dissolved in ancient acidic oceans, with hydrothermal H2 emanating from long-lived ~100°C alkaline submarine springs. Our proposal is to use a hydrothermal reactor to simulate the conditions when the first oceans formed on early Earth or Mars. Such a high-pressure flow-through reactor, already designed and fabrication is in progress funded internally by JPL. The reactor, comprising titanium or variously passivated chrome steel barrels, will be completed and used in the expectation of generating acetate, the likely first building component of life and the assumed waste product of the first bacteria (cf. the acetogenic bacteria). The core geochemical reaction that is employed as a biochemical reaction in the acetyl coenzyme-A pathway is 4H2 + 2CO2 —> CH3COO- + H+ + 2H2O. Additions of ammonia and phosphate to the primary reactants are also expected to produce simple amino acids and short peptides. Nickel in iron-nickel sulfides, freshly precipitated as the reactants meet within the reactor and similar in structure to the active centers of the iron/nickel-sulfur enzymes, will be the catalyst for the reactions. Carbon dioxide is expected to be reduced to the carbonyl moiety, and a portion reduced all the way to the methyl group. The two are then likely assembled at a nickel site as suggested by Huber and Wächtershäuser (1997). The analytical results of the experiments would, for the first time, provide experimental support for a generic model for the formation of prebiotic molecules for all ocean-bearing rocky worlds, including Mars, and help in the choosing of future exploration sites on Mars, sites where there would be the best chance of finding surviving pre-biotic molecules, or evidence of extinct Martian life.
