Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre de Biophysique Moléculaire, Orléans, France.
Astrobiology. 2010 Jan-Feb;10(1):69-76. doi: 10.1089/ast.2009.0374.
The ultimate goal of terrestrial planet-finding missions is not only to discover terrestrial exoplanets inside the habitable zone (HZ) of their host stars but also to address the major question as to whether life may have evolved on a habitable Earth-like exoplanet outside our Solar System. We note that the chemical evolution that finally led to the origin of life on Earth must be studied if we hope to understand the principles of how life might evolve on other terrestrial planets in the Universe. This is not just an anthropocentric point of view: the basic ingredients of terrestrial life, that is, reduced carbon-based molecules and liquid H(2)O, have very specific properties. We discuss the origin of life from the chemical evolution of its precursors to the earliest life-forms and the biological implications of the stellar radiation and energetic particle environments. Likewise, the study of the biological evolution that has generated the various life-forms on Earth provides clues toward the understanding of the interconnectedness of life with its environment.
寻找类地行星任务的最终目标不仅是要在其宿主恒星的可居住区内发现类地系外行星，还要解决一个主要问题，即在我们太阳系之外的类地宜居行星上是否可能存在生命。我们注意到，如果我们希望了解生命在宇宙中其他类地行星上可能如何演化，就必须研究最终导致地球上生命起源的化学演化。这不仅仅是一种人类中心主义的观点：构成地球生命基础的成分，即还原的碳基分子和液态 H2O，具有非常特殊的性质。我们讨论了从其前体的化学演化到最早的生命形式的生命起源，以及恒星辐射和高能粒子环境的生物学意义。同样，对地球上各种生命形式的生物演化的研究为理解生命与其环境的相互关系提供了线索。
