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Asked by anon-186283 to Trystan, Danny, Catherine on 11 Nov 2018.
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Danny Ward answered on 11 Nov 2018:
This is one of the great mysteries of the universe! There is a whole science dedicated to understanding this, its the study of abiogenesis or the study of the origin of life.
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How did living things arise from non-living things? Its a really tough question that is hard to answer. The general scientific belief is that this transition happened gradually over a very long time where things in the environment gradually got more complex over billions of years at multiple event points.
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Eventually molecules like DNA were made which act as genetic instructions for living things. This probably would have been the starting point for DNA-based organisms like us and it got more and more complex from there. Multiple complex bits would have combined to make an even more complex system. Fast-forward billions of years…and here we are! ⏩⌛
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That’s really as much as we know, its very hard to prove anything relating to this as we can’t wind the clock back and have a look how it happened!
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Trystan Leng answered on 12 Nov 2018:
What a great question. The honest answer is nobody really knows. Some researchers think life might have began near ‘deep sea vents’. The chemicals present, and the energy provided by the vents, could have allowed many of the chemical reactions needed for life to evolve to happen. This is just a hypothesis though!
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