The origin of life: science and imagination

How did life originate? Where did life originate? When did life originate? Three major questions to which many small, but no major, answers already exist. Life on Earth originated in the oldest period of the Earth, when the least remains. We are trying to piece together a very complex puzzle with very few pieces.

What we do know is this: life formed after the formation of the moon, around 4.53 - 4.45 billion years ago. We also know that it must have formed before the first undisputed evidence of life, around 3.8 - 3.5 billion years old. Somewhere during this time, molecules began to interact in such a way that a system ultimately emerged that we can call living. But we don't know when that was either.

There are currently two scenarios that are promising, but also extremes: life originated on the ocean floor near hot water geysers, or life originated near hot springs on the first land. To better understand which scenario is most plausible, we first need to know what Earth looked like at that time, what environments existed on Earth, and what chemical reactions were possible in those environments. And that's what we'll be doing with PRELIFE, across four different themes.

In the first theme, Earth's environments in the Hadeïcom, we'll investigate how we can interpret the information from the oldest rocks, how deep the earliest oceans were, what geochemical processes were at play there, and when the very first land formed.

In the second theme, focusing on the origin of life, we'll focus on the chemistry that ultimately led to life, studying the formation of cells, the origins of metabolism, and evolution. We'll do this both at the molecular scale and at the scale of the networks in which the molecules interact.

In the third theme, the origin of life beyond Earth, we'll look at how Earth-like planets are formed, where organic material comes from, and whether the conditions on the icy moons in our solar system are also favorable for life.

The fourth theme focuses on everyone who isn't a scientist. In this theme, "Involving Society," we're researching how we can teach students to address complex questions for which there's little concrete evidence and which require consideration at different time and spatial scales, such as the origin of life. In this theme, we'll also work with artists who will translate our research into their art, writers and filmmakers who will help us communicate our research in various ways, and Next Nature, where we'll also share our results in the Geosphere.

To explore these questions from all angles, PRELIFE consists of earth scientists, astronomers, biologists, information scientists, physicists, educators, planetary scientists, chemists, and mathematicians, as well as artists, filmmakers, and writers. With this diverse group of people, we can not only solve scientific questions but also engage non-scientists in thinking about answers to these questions.

ABOUT INGE LOES TEN KATE
Inge Loes ten Kate is professor in Planetary Science and Astrobiology, chair of the Origins Center and the scientific director of the PRELIFE consortium. She works at Utrecht University and the University of Amsterdam. She has been fascinated by space her entire life and studied Aerospace Engineering to learn how to get there.