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Life exists all over the Earth in air, water, and soil, with many ecosystems forming the biosphere. Some of these are harsh environments occupied only by extremophiles . Life has been studied since ancient times, with theories such as Empedocles 's materialism asserting that it was composed of four eternal elements , and Aristotle 's ...
Life forms live in every part of the Earth's biosphere, including soil, hot springs, inside rocks at least 19 km (12 mi) deep underground, and at least 64 km (40 mi) high in the atmosphere. [26] [27] [28] Marine life under many forms has been found in the deepest reaches of the world ocean while much of the deep sea remains to be explored. [29]
Soil is the habitat for many organisms: the major part of known and unknown biodiversity is in the soil, in the form of earthworms, woodlice, millipedes, centipedes, snails, slugs, mites, springtails, enchytraeids, nematodes, protists), bacteria, archaea, fungi and algae; and most organisms living above ground have part of them or spend part of ...
The Gaia hypothesis (/ ˈ ɡ aɪ. ə /), also known as the Gaia theory, Gaia paradigm, or the Gaia principle, proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet.
All life on Earth can be traced back to a Last Universal Common Ancestor, or LUCA. A new study suggests that this organism likely lived on Earth only 400 million years after its formation.
Life arose from the Earth's first ocean, which formed some 3.8 billion years ago. [33] Since then, water continues to be the most abundant molecule in every organism. Water is important to life because it is an effective solvent, capable of dissolving solutes such as sodium and chloride ions or other small molecules to form an aqueous solution.
All life on Earth can be traced back to a Last Universal Common Ancestor, or LUCA. A new study suggests that this organism likely lived on Earth only 400 million years after its formation.
A life form (also spelled life-form or lifeform) is an entity that is living, [1] [2] such as plants , animals , and fungi . It is estimated that more than 99% of all species that ever existed on Earth, amounting to over five billion species, [3] are extinct. [4] [5] Earth is the only celestial body known to harbor life forms. No form of ...