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A large fraction of the chemical elements that occur naturally on the Earth's surface are essential to the structure and metabolism of living things. Four of these elements (hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen) are essential to every living thing and collectively make up 99% of the mass of protoplasm. [1]
In August 2018, researchers reported that water worlds could support life. [6] [7] Habitability indicators and biosignatures must be interpreted within a planetary and environmental context. [2] In determining the habitability potential of a body, studies focus on its bulk composition, orbital properties, atmosphere, and
The carbon cycle is a biogeochemical cycle that is important in maintaining life on Earth over a long time span. The cycle includes carbon sequestration and carbon sinks. [4] [5] Plate tectonics are needed for life over a long time span, and carbon-based life is important in the plate tectonics process. [6]
Some of the properties of water that are important for life processes include: A complexity which leads to a large number of permutations of possible reaction paths including acid–base chemistry, H + cations, OH − anions, hydrogen bonding, van der Waals bonding, dipole–dipole and other polar interactions, aqueous solvent cages, and ...
A closely related approach, relational biology, is concerned mainly with understanding life processes in terms of the most important relations, and categories of such relations among the essential functional components of organisms; for multicellular organisms, this has been defined as "categorical biology", or a model representation of ...
Astronomers have detected more evidence that Saturn’s moon Enceladus may be one of the most promising places to search for life beyond Earth.
NASA's 2015 strategy for astrobiology aimed to solve the puzzle of the origin of life – how a fully functioning living system could emerge from non-living components – through research on the prebiotic origin of life's chemicals, both in space and on planets, as well as the functioning of early biomolecules to catalyse reactions and support inheritance.
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