WHY IS THE DEFINITION OF AND LIFE’S ORIGINS ON IMPORTANT IN EXTRATERRESTRIAL RESEARCH

Jan Jędryszek

1;78703924449250650000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000 000000000000000000000000000000 0 1. Introduction Plan 2. Life – Is a definition of a “living system” possible? – Life’s origins? 3. Looking for life 4. Thompson Jr. – Future findings and results – Advantages The 2nd Law & Entropy

ENTROPY - . "a measure of disorder or randomness in a closed system.“ -The American Heritage Dictionary . "mixedupness." -J. Willard Gibbs, theoretical physicist

Can you reduce entropy?

• The total entropy of system A can not decrease without increasing the entropy of system B.

• Hence, in a system isolated from its environment, the entropy of that system will tend not to decrease.

Humans don’t dissolve. Are we isolated systems? We are NOT Gibbs Free Energy

G = H − TS • H - enthalpy (joules) • T - temperature (kelvins) • S - entropy (joule per kelvin)

∆G negative = reaction can occur spontaneously. +5.5 kcal/mole.

Glucose Fructose -7.3 kcal/mole ATP ADP P ATP ATP

P

ADP ATP

P Sucrose

P

ADP ATP

-1.8 kcal/mole

-7.3 kcal/mole. (the reaction will occur +5.5 kcal/ mole spontaneously. ) P Sucrose

P

ADP Gibbs Free Energy is the basic principle behind all enzymatic action in biological organisms Entropy is NOT an obstacle for life.

The natural process of life arising from non- living matter. Life? • Life - The ability to grow, change, etc. that Life separates plants and animals from things like water or rocks. • Life is not a “thing” • It’s a process • Millions of biochemical reactions in every single cell in our bodies. • Eg: Bacteria are a single cell that, just like us, have its own DNA, and can synthesize its own proteins, replicate, breathe, eat • A virus cannot replicate by itself – it needs a host cell in which it can insert its genetic material – enslave its host, forcing it to create copies of the virus. • Are viruses alive at all? • Better question – what can we consider as a “marker” of life in a virus? – Not the protein capsid – Not the DNA.. – ..but the information that it’s DNA carries. Life & Entropy • Claude Shannon; information is negative entropy. (Information theory)

• It’s the very opposite of disorder.

• Information is the basis of life – it doesn’t matter how this information is encoded. DNA, RNA, amino acid chains, etc. • Claude Shannon; information is negative Life & Entropy entropy. (Information theory) • It’s the very opposite of disorder. “Max Entropy/• MinInformation Info” is the basis of life – it doesn’t matter how this information is encoded. DNA, RNA, amino acid chains, etc.

↓Entropy/ Info↑

“Minimal Entropy/ Maximum Information” (H or T) 푝ℎ − probability of Heads 푝푡 − 푝푟표푏푎푏푖푙푖푡푦 표푓 푇푎푖푙푠 log2 푝 − (2 푏푒푐푎푢푠푒 2 푝표푠푠푖푏푙푒 푟푒푠푢푙푡푠; 퐻푒푎푑푠 표푟 푇푎푖푙푠)

−푝ℎ log2 푝ℎ − 푝푡 log2 푝푡 =

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 − log − log = − × −1 − × −1 = + = 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2

Resulting in 1 bit of information. time ATP

-1.8 kcal/mole

-7.3 kcal/mole. (the reaction will occur +5.5 kcal/ mole spontaneously. ) P Sucrose

P

ADP

“Controlled Descent”

-Energy is being dispersed all the time – Entropy rises.

-The living “know” how to use it to their advantage. • In order to find life, we need to understand the definition and the source, the reason of life. • We need to understand how life came to exist. • But alien life doesn’t have to be similar to Earth-life. The hypothesis suggests that life originated from a different place then Earth, and the first life forms were brought to earth via meteor.

Earth Climate

Martian Climate ’s Climate

Enceladus

40% volume ocean Salt content similar to Earth Ice at South Pole 5 km thick Saturns Gravity is NOT enough to explain how stays warm (thin ice – traps less heat)

Heat production at core? Complex compounds found in its jets Europa Ceres Mars • 1500 years? – – Mediocrity Principle (we are not unique) • Graveyard – Habitle zone does not mean life – Early habitle conditions may be unstable – Eg. Earth; the earliest metabolites started modyfing greenhouse gases; methane, carbon di oxite, hydrogen, water • Armando Azua-Bustos and Cristian Vega-Martínez • Quantify the degree of entropy difference (and thus, their structural complexity) of living processes (e.g. plant growing patterns) as entities separate from similar abiotic surroundings.

• This approach may allow possible detection of unknown forms of life based on nothing more than entropy differentials of complementary datasets.

• Future explorations in the solar system, like Mars or , may incorporate this concept in their mission planning in order to detect potential endemic lifeforms.

James Webb

• Io, Enceladus, Europa.. Thompson • Bubble scrubbing • Gel • Fractal complexity analysis - detecting life that we Thompson 1 don’t even suspect exists using the patterns it creates when it grows. • - Detecting life by looking for a heat process emitting a Thompson 2 precise wavelength, instead of looking for bio- signatures: it looks for the process we recognize as “life”, not its building blocks (which can be very different.) Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy - Detecting the Thompson 3 structure and dynamics of the molecule: better understanding of the processes beyond earth. – Future findings and results  Positive results – Hydrothermal vents necessary for life formation? o Similar – Panspermia? o Different – the is full of life  Negative results– patches of water on land necessary for life formation?  No need to land o No risk of containment by earth- brought organisms. o No lander – saves money.  Offers the possibility to find alien life we did not imagine even exists  Offers the possibility to find molecules and processes that could lead us to better understand abiogenesis and how we came into existence. By the way…..

The simplest theorized self-replicating peptide is only 32 amino acids long.

The probability of it forming randomly, in sequential trials, is approximately 1 in 1040 • Life is 78703924449250650000000000000 26169,541 00000000000000000000000000000 = 00000000000000000000000000000 1040 00000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000000 00000000000000000000000000 times more likely to come into existence than a monkey typing “Hamlet”.

Bibliography

• “The story of Earth”, 2012– Robert M.Hazen • “Dylematy Ewolucji”, 2016 – Michal Heller, Jozef Zycinski • “The Mystery of Life’s origin”, 1984 • “Evolution as Entropy”, 1994 - Daniel R. Brooks and E. O. Wiley • "The Probability and Origin of Life“, 1984- Russell Doolittle • “Statistical physics of self-replication”, 2013 - Jeremy L. England • “ The potential for detecting ‘life as we don’t know it’ by fractal complexity analysis”, 2013 - Armando Azua-Bustos and Cristian Vega-Martínez

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