The Early Solar System

There are complex organic molecules in interstellar space, on interplanetary dust, in comets, and in the meteorites that hit the Earth from time to time. It makes good chemical sense that such compounds form naturally in interplanetary or interstellar space, because gas clouds, dust particles, and meteorite surfaces are bathed in cosmic and stellar radiation. But life as we know it consists of cells, composed mostly of liquid water that is vital to life. It is impossible to imagine the formation of any kind of water-laden cell in outer space; that could only have happened on a planet that had oceans and therefore an atmosphere

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