Where Did Life Begin Research Paper

Life

Jessica McMasters

5/28/18

Diggs 3rd hr

Currently on Earth we define life in two different ways. The Virginia SOL deines life as an organism that has cells, can sense and respond to change, reproduce,has genetic coding, uses energy, and can grow and develop. The NASA Exobiology Program defines life s “ a self-sustained chemical system capable of undergoing Darwinian Evolution” For milenia the human race has been asking the question “ Where did life begin”. This question has sparked a lot of scientific interest and has led to the creation of many theories. While no theory about how life started can be proved true some however are more likely than others and can be supported thought scientific reasoning and

Another popular theory is the Panspermia theory which theories that life from another planet found its way to Earth and grew and developed over time. Scientist may not agree on where life started, but most scientist do agree on a few key conditions that are needed to create life as we know it. First life requires more that the elements of Helium and Hydrogen so this mean that we are not likely to find life in Population 2 star systems. Life needs other elements like Carbon, Neon, Oxygen, Hydrogen, Phosphorus, and Sulfur. Life also requires some energy and an atmosphere.Using this information we can conclude that it is really unlikely that we would ever find life on gas giants, terrestrial planets with no atmosphere, or at the center of a galaxy. However this does not mean that it is impossible for life to exist on these planets. Life is a remarkable thing and can exist in even the most unlikely of places. Microbial life has been found

For the past fifty years we have been exploring the planet Mars. We have been observing it through telescopes and by sending rovers such as Opportunity, Spirit and Curiosity. Spirit and Opportunity found minerals that can only be created in the presence of water and by using Curiosity astronomers were able to figure out that Mars once had liquid water, enough energy, and enough materials that could have allowed life to form. This research and many others have allowed us to come up with a few “indicators” of life that we could see from space. We can look at the size of the star in it’s solar system, the size of the planet, the closeness of the planet to its star, the color of the star, and the color of the planet( because certain chemicals reflect different colors) in order to find good “candidates” for life. However if we do ever find life it will most likely be tiny bacteria and not the intelligent life that our society has imagined. It has been proven that the science fiction is false and UFOs have not landed on Earth. We know this because they have never been reported by an actual astronomer and they have never left and physical evidence. However this does not mean that there are no intelligent civilizations out there or that astronomers are not searching for them. We are currently looking and