Outstanding Russian scientist A. I. Oparin developed and in 1924 published his theory of the origin of life on the planet. At one time, the atmosphere was highly saturated with water vapor and contained primary organic compounds: oxygen derivatives of hydrocarbons, ammonia, cyanogen and some others. These compounds, formed due to the enormous temperatures, had great chemical energy and the ability to transform. When the temperature of the upper layers of the Earth's air shell dropped to 100 degrees Celsius, very hot torrential rains poured onto the planet's surface, resulting in seas of boiling water. Water currents brought the first organic compounds to Earth. Once in hot seas, substances began to interact and form more complex structures. These processes have been going on for thousands of years, and, finally,there appeared gelatinous clumps of organic substances, one might say, primary organisms, which had a rather complex structure and the ability to absorb substances from the environment. The further path of evolution was not easy either, for many millennia the perfection of jelly-like pieces went before they became the first living beings with a full range of properties that distinguish living matter from non-living matter. Thus, A. I. Oparin, organic matter has turned into a living organism with all its inherent features during, by our standards, an infinitely long time period. For many millennia, the jelly-like pieces were perfected before they became the first living creatures with a full range of properties that distinguish living matter from inanimate. Thus, A. I. Oparin, organic matter has turned into a living organism with all its inherent features during, by our standards, an infinitely long time period. For many millennia, the jelly-like pieces were perfected before they became the first living things with a full range of properties that distinguish living matter from inanimate. Thus, A. I. Oparin, organic matter has turned into a living organism with all its inherent features during, by our standards, an infinitely long time period.
Until now, much attention has been paid to the above theory, but the original and very convincingly stated hypothesis of the greatest scientist of our time, Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky, was rarely mentioned. Vladimir Ivanovich believed that the emergence of life on Earth is the result of a gigantic catastrophe caused by a hard collision of cosmic and earthly forces. It was such a catastrophe that led to the appearance in a lifeless environment of contradictions unusual for it, which, in turn, served as the reason for the emergence of primary organisms.
Of course, this interesting theory requires a more detailed presentation. Any living organism exists on our planet not independently of the rest of living matter, but in close relationship with it. Vernadsky created the doctrine of the biosphere - the active shell of the Earth, which includes all living organisms and their habitat. The scientist made an important conclusion: the aggregate activity of living organisms manifests itself as a geochemical factor that affects the general state of the planet. How did the biosphere come about? There is Redi's principle, which rigidly establishes the rule: "Omne vivume vivo", that is, "all living things come from living things." And this is true today. However, Vernadsky notes that sometime in the past, and maybe sometime in the future, this principle could be violated. This would require the presence of physicochemical phenomena that are not taken into account in modern conditions. An example of the selectivity of the application of the fundamental principle is the well-known law of constancy of matter, which says: "A substance is constant in its mass, does not disappear and does not arise again within the limits of physicochemical phenomena known to us." We continue to use it now in special cases, although radioactivity has long been discovered that refutes it. Thus, we can assume that the Redi principle is valid in conditions when life has already appeared, that is, having once originated, life cannot spontaneously arise again in the biosphere.although radioactivity has long been discovered to refute it. Thus, we can assume that the Redi principle is valid in conditions when life has already appeared, that is, having once originated, life cannot spontaneously arise again in the biosphere.although radioactivity has long been discovered to refute it. Thus, we can assume that the Redi principle is valid in conditions when life has already appeared, that is, having once originated, life cannot spontaneously arise again in the biosphere.
Vernadsky believed that the biosphere includes two types of matter: inert and living. Inert substances - minerals have not changed during their existence. The scientist wrote: "There are no new minerals that have appeared in the earth's crust during geological time, except for the creation of human technology." Living matter has been constantly changing in the course of evolution. Vernadsky emphasized: "The living world of the biosphere of the Paleozoic, 550-230 million years ago, and the living world of the biosphere of our time are sharply different, the world of inert matter is the same." But inert and living matter are closely interrelated, which means that in order for inert matter to remain in its former form, the average chemical composition and the average mass of the living part of the biosphere must be approximately the same, that is, the living part must make up a strictly defined fraction of the mass of the entire biosphere. Only then will an important natural mechanism, called the weathering crust, not fail, the essence of which is the formation of rocks on the Earth's surface as a result of the decomposition of bedrocks, the accumulation of inactive residual products such as aluminum, iron, titanium, the removal of alkalis and silica. It is with this process that the formation of deposits of many minerals is associated. It turns out that from the very beginning of its existence, the biosphere should have consisted of various life forms with various geochemical functions that ensure the existence of a phenomenon called the weathering crust. Vernadsky emphasized: “The functions of life in the biosphere - biochemical functions - are unchanged over geological time, and none of them reappeared in the course of geological time. They continuously exist simultaneously. "called the weathering crust, the essence of which is the formation of rocks on the Earth's surface as a result of the decomposition of bedrocks, the accumulation of inactive residual products such as aluminum, iron, titanium, the removal of alkalis and silica. It is with this process that the formation of deposits of many minerals is associated. It turns out that from the very beginning of its existence, the biosphere should have consisted of various life forms with various geochemical functions that ensure the existence of a phenomenon called the weathering crust. Vernadsky emphasized: “The functions of life in the biosphere - biochemical functions - are unchanged over geological time, and none of them reappeared in the course of geological time. They continuously exist simultaneously. "called the weathering crust, the essence of which is the formation of rocks on the Earth's surface as a result of the decomposition of bedrocks, the accumulation of inactive residual products such as aluminum, iron, titanium, the removal of alkalis and silica. It is with this process that the formation of deposits of many minerals is associated. It turns out that from the very beginning of its existence, the biosphere should have consisted of various life forms with various geochemical functions that ensure the existence of a phenomenon called the weathering crust. Vernadsky emphasized: “The functions of life in the biosphere - biochemical functions - are unchanged over geological time, and none of them reappeared in the course of geological time. They continuously exist simultaneously. "the essence of which is the formation of rocks on the Earth's surface as a result of the decomposition of bedrocks, the accumulation of inactive residual products such as aluminum, iron, titanium, the removal of alkalis and silica. It is with this process that the formation of deposits of many minerals is associated. It turns out that from the very beginning of its existence, the biosphere should have consisted of various life forms with various geochemical functions that ensure the existence of a phenomenon called the weathering crust. Vernadsky emphasized: “The functions of life in the biosphere - biochemical functions - are unchanged over geological time, and none of them reappeared in the course of geological time. They continuously exist simultaneously. "the essence of which is the formation of rocks on the Earth's surface as a result of the decomposition of bedrocks, the accumulation of inactive residual products such as aluminum, iron, titanium, the removal of alkalis and silica. It is with this process that the formation of deposits of many minerals is associated. It turns out that from the very beginning of its existence, the biosphere should have consisted of various life forms with various geochemical functions that ensure the existence of a phenomenon called the weathering crust. Vernadsky emphasized: “The functions of life in the biosphere - biochemical functions - are unchanged over geological time, and none of them reappeared in the course of geological time. They continuously exist simultaneously. "accumulation of inactive residual products - such as aluminum, iron, titanium, removal of alkalis and silica. It is with this process that the formation of deposits of many minerals is associated. It turns out that from the very beginning of its existence, the biosphere should have consisted of various life forms with various geochemical functions that ensure the existence of a phenomenon called the weathering crust. Vernadsky emphasized: “The functions of life in the biosphere - biochemical functions - are unchanged over geological time, and none of them reappeared in the course of geological time. They continuously exist simultaneously. "accumulation of inactive residual products such as aluminum, iron, titanium, removal of alkalis and silica. It is with this process that the formation of deposits of many minerals is associated. It turns out that from the very beginning of its existence, the biosphere should have consisted of various life forms with various geochemical functions that ensure the existence of a phenomenon called the weathering crust. Vernadsky emphasized: “The functions of life in the biosphere - biochemical functions - are unchanged over geological time, and none of them reappeared in the course of geological time. They continuously exist simultaneously. "that from the very beginning of its existence, the biosphere should have consisted of various forms of life with various geochemical functions that ensure the existence of a phenomenon called the weathering crust. Vernadsky emphasized: “The functions of life in the biosphere - biochemical functions - are unchanged over geological time, and none of them reappeared in the course of geological time. They continuously exist simultaneously. "that from the very beginning of its existence, the biosphere should have consisted of various forms of life with various geochemical functions, ensuring the existence of a phenomenon called the weathering crust. Vernadsky emphasized: “The functions of life in the biosphere - biochemical functions - are unchanged over geological time, and none of them reappeared in the course of geological time. They continuously exist simultaneously."
These biochemical functions are:
1. The gas function, which closely links all gases of the biosphere with life. The creation and destruction of these gases is carried out in a biogenic way.
2. Oxygen function - the release of free oxygen from carbon dioxide, water and the like.
3. Oxidative function - oxidation of oxygen-poor compounds occurring in the biosphere.
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4. Calcium function - the release of calcium in the form of pure salts, carbonate, phosphoric acid, oxalic acid.
5. Reducing function - the formation of compounds from sulfates.
6. Concentration function, which transfers some elements from a scattered state to clusters due to the influence of living organisms. These are, for example, nitrogen, carbon, calcium, iron and others.
7. Function of combustion of organic compounds - decomposition of bodies of dead organisms with the release of water, carbon dioxide, nitrogen.
8. Function of reductive decomposition of organic compounds, giving hydrogen sulfide, methane, hydrogen.
9. The function of metabolism and respiration of organisms associated with the absorption of oxygen and water, the release of carbon dioxide and the migration of organic compounds.
These biochemical functions are performed by a variety of living organisms: bacteria, algae, mosses, the simplest unicellular organisms, but there is no organism capable of performing all these functions at once in nature. Moreover, it is impossible to replace one functional executor with another, since this would lead to a mandatory transformation of the function itself. And although a person can simultaneously cause various chemical processes, he achieves this, as Vernadsky wrote, with his mind and technology, and not with the physiological work of his body.
Thus, it turns out that a whole group of various unicellular organisms capable of performing the listed functions should have arisen on Earth at once, or one simplest organism should have quickly split into different forms that perform different geochemical functions. But such a period should have left its mark in the earth's crust, and to date, no facts have been found to confirm this. From all of the above, it follows that life could not be brought from space in the form of a single organism, could not spontaneously originate or appear first as one type, for example, a bacterium or alga, a whole complex of various living forms had to arise. This complex, thanks to evolutionary development, has expanded into the widest spectrum, which today numbers millions of species of animals and plants.
IN AND. Vernadsky identified the main distinguishing feature of living matter - dissymmetry. Living matter has incomplete, broken axial symmetry, the equality of its right and left sides is not absolute, while inanimate matter is characterized by strict axial symmetry.
The first to tell the world about the phenomena associated with the predominance of either the right or the left side in living matter was the prominent French scientist of the 19th century Louis Pasteur, who was the founder of modern microbiology. His research showed that both in the structure of living matter and in the physiological manifestations of whole living organisms, pronounced right dissymmetry prevails. It is very rare, but still there are left-handed life forms, for example, among the shells of mollusks, specimens with left dissymmetry sometimes come across.
Another French scientist of the late 19th century, physicist Pierre Curie, established: "Dissymmetry can arise only under the influence of a cause that has the same dissymmetry." This confirmed Pasteur's conjecture that the origin of life could only occur in a right-symmetric environment. But all inorganic processes and formations on Earth have the usual symmetry. This means that earthly life may have unearthly roots.
So V. I. Vernadsky identified three main conditions for the origin of life:
1. During the formation of the biosphere on the earth's crust, physical and chemical phenomena and processes took place that are now absent in it, but which were necessary for the spontaneous emergence of life. However, they cannot include ordinary physical, chemical and geochemical processes.
2. Life could not arise and exist for a long time as one kind of organisms, from which in the future, by the usual evolutionary way, all the others appeared. The available data on the constancy of the biochemical functions of living matter in the biosphere suggest the simultaneous or almost simultaneous formation of a group of protozoan unicellular organisms that performed various biogeochemical functions. These functions, in turn, formed the Earth's biosphere. Subsequently, by way of evolution, all other organisms developed from the protozoa, which subsequently existed only within the biosphere.
3. In accordance with the conclusions made by Pasteur and the Curie principle, this unusual process, which does not fit into the framework of ordinary physicochemical phenomena, must have right-handed dissymmetry.
All these conditions, according to Vernadsky, are satisfied by a grandiose cosmic catastrophe, because it is in outer space that dissymmetric phenomena are widespread. Note the shape of the spiral nebulae. The scientist believed that the Pacific Trench, which gives the earth's crust dissymmetry, could have formed as a result of the largest cosmic coup: the separation of the Moon from the Earth. This hypothesis was not confirmed, the Moon was never part of the Earth. But a huge depression in the Pacific Ocean could appear after the fall of a very large asteroid. Paleontological studies show that life arose on Earth approximately at the time when the formation of the Earth as a planet ended, from 4.5 to 3.5 billion years ago, and geological dissymmetry associated with the division into the Atlantic and Pacific segments,has existed for at least 1.5 billion years.
At present, when scientists have already proved that cosmic processes have a huge impact on the evolution of life, that the formation of the Earth is explained by the accumulation of asteroids, and the tilt of the axis of rotation of our planet is the result of the fall of a giant space traveler, V. I. Vernadsky is becoming more and more interesting. Perhaps, soon this theory will receive new confirmation and we will be convinced that life and the planet are the same age, owing their miraculous birth to great cosmic cataclysms.
P. Denisova. "Secrets of Disasters"