Abstract
In order to get chemical evolution into life, permitting for transport and enrichment of intermediates, and organizing biology into cells which then can compete as to enable Darwinian evolution, a liquidosphere is required besides a steadily retained atmosphere and a solid basis—excluding gas planets and smaller asteroids, moons from consideration as abodes of life—, and there are arguments in favor of water to form this liquidosphere: it is the most likely compound (especially given its abundance in both “near” outer space and cosmological distances) while others are either “too good” solvents (liquid HF, CH3OH) and/or photochemically unstable. It is the very interaction among all three environmental compartments which does shape and enable life-forms to persist and reproduce while both solid and liquid phases have their indispensable roles in bringing together and processing intermediates which either are formed in the atmosphere or even trickle down from outer space. Maintaining a certain range of surface pressures and temperatures produces upper and lower limits not only for the orbit of a planet or large moon “friendly” to (origin, sustainance of) life but also to its size.
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Notes
- 1.
The famous “gullies” on Mars which significantly get active during winter- rather than summer times are not caused by melt-water on crater ridges but sand gets mobile by evaporation of underneath dry ice or CO2 hydrate, rendering a, possibly salt-glued, layer of sand to behave like a hovercraft in sliding down on some gas cushion. Nevertheless there was liquid water flowing and depositing typical minerals (clays, jarosite) in depressions in earlier times, probably extending over the first billion years of existence of the planet. Now pmax = 13–16 mbar at deepest spots of Hellas Depression.
- 2.
At sufficient pressures, there is line-broadening of absorptions even with IR-inactive molecules such as N2, H2 or noble gas atoms, producing substantial greenhouse effects at ptot > 5 bars even though IR absorption is “forbidden” by selection rules. For Mars, there is evidence for massive effusion by enrichment of heavy isotopes 13C, 15N, 18O in both CO2 and N2 with respect to both condensed C, N, O compounds in Martian soil and to Earthly isotopic standards.
- 3.
Some enzymes obtained from quite different, including thermophilic, organisms were shown (Siegel et al. 1984) to remain active in such media or in methanol containing but traces of water yet the minimum temperature for perceptible activity seems to be about 220 K. However, there is no more detectable metabolic activity in Antarctic aqueous salt brines below some 255 K (Don Juan Pond), let alone down to the freezing-points of the above water-similar solvents or even (the lowest-melting close analog of water) 1-propanol (146 K/−127 °C).
- 4.
HCN, several chlorohydrocarbons, O2, H2S, COS, traces of CS2 and first parts of SO2 start being evolved upon heating a drilled Martian sample (from within “Rocknest” site rocks) within a fairly narrow temperature range (250–450 °C). The amount of water released upon heating (some 2–3 wt-%) is similar to that which severely “compromised” the results of Viking Pyrolytic Release Experiment (likewise indicating fast formation of reduced C compounds more complex than CO, CH4, possibly being HCN or COS but more likely simple organics like glycolic acid) when added to the test samples (which were more massive than those from Gale Crater) as vapor or “mist”.
- 5.
What now is the atmosphere of Earth corresponds in pressure to some 10 m of water or about 4 m of sand or pebbled rocks. For Mars, correcting for its weaker gravity it is some 15 cm of salt brine water (keeping liquid at the very surface) or 7 cm of soil; soil starts to change from rusty-red to light-grey much above, and permafrost is seen at about this level (7 cm) in the Martian Arctic. Thus even in the terrestrial plants with more thin atmospheres (Earth, Mars) the atmosphere prevails over oxidatively altered topsoil in mass of redox-active species. Oxidative gradients in terrestrial soils now form within the uppermost 1 m, and a few mm in water-logged matter.
- 6.
Whereas HF does occur in Venusian atmosphere and volcano vent gases, it is unlikely to prevail over water in forming liquids, its ambient-pressure boiling point being some 19 °C. Many metal ions—by dissolution of silicate or carbonate rocks—and boron would be converted into fluoro complexes which at least are not known to be catalytically active in our context. CH3OH is sensitive towards oxidation while NH3 undergoes rapid photolysis, and HCN is liable towards both polymerization and hydrolysis rather than supporting solution for long (notwithstanding the obvious risks associated with using either solvent [liquid HF is about as toxic as liquid HCN] both solvents and similar ones like nitryl- or arsenic halides were investigated in much detail concerning all dissolution of various organics, complex formation, redox reactions, beginning in late nineteenth century already [e.g. Fredenhagen 1902); hence water remains the best guess for prebiotic chemistry although its peculiar chemical properties are somewhat obstructive in terms of chemical kinetics (Hammett 1973; Makosza 2000).
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Markert, B., Fränzle, S., Wünschmann, S. (2015). Significance of Water (or Some Other Liquidosphere), Soil and Atmosphere for the Chemical Evolution. In: Chemical Evolution. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14355-2_5
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