Conveners
ORIGINS of Life Lab Highlight and Seed Money Talks
- Dieter Braun (LMU)
On the surface of the early Earth and Earth-like exoplanets ultraviolet (UV) light acts as an important energy source. Particularly, UV light of different wavelength ranges can trigger a variety of photochemical reactions relevant to the molecular origins of life. However, the penetration depth of UV light into natural waters on early Earth and Earth-like exoplanets has remained an open...
Prebiotic lake environments containing ferrocyanide could have fostered origins of life chemistry on the early Earth. Ferrocyanide, coupled with sulfite or sulfide, can participate in an ultraviolet (UV)-driven photoredox cycle to generate solvated electrons, which can reduce cyanide to form all four major building blocks of life: sugars, amino acids, nucleotides, and lipid precursors....
