The Moon‐Forming Impact and the Autotrophic Origin of Life

Abstract

The Moon‐forming impact vaporized part of Earth's mantle, and turned the rest into a magma ocean, from which carbon dioxide degassed into the atmosphere, where it stayed until water rained out to form the oceans. The rain dissolved CO 2 and made it available to react with transition metal catalysts in the Earth's crust so as to ultimately generate the organic compounds that form the backbone of microbial metabolism. The Moon‐forming impact was key in building a planet with the capacity to generate life in that it converted carbon on Earth into a homogeneous and accessible substrate for organic synthesis. Today all ecosystems, without exception, depend upon primary producers, organisms that fix CO 2. According to theories of autotrophic origin, it has always been that way, because autotrophic theories posit that the first forms of life generated all the molecules needed to build a cell from CO 2, forging a direct line of continuity between Earth's initial CO 2‐rich atmosphere and the first microorganisms. By modern accounts these were chemolithoautotrophic archaea and bacteria that initially colonized the crust and still inhabit that environment today.