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| Titel |
Fundamental molecules of life are pigments which arose and co-evolved as a response to the thermodynamic imperative of dissipating the prevailing solar spectrum |
| VerfasserIn |
K. Michaelian, A. Simeonov |
| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| ISSN |
1726-4170
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| Digitales Dokument |
URL |
| Erschienen |
In: Biogeosciences ; 12, no. 16 ; Nr. 12, no. 16 (2015-08-19), S.4913-4937 |
| Datensatznummer |
250118066
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 copernicus.org/bg-12-4913-2015.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| The driving force behind the origin and evolution of life has been the
thermodynamic imperative of increasing the entropy production of the
biosphere through increasing the global solar photon dissipation rate. In
the upper atmosphere of today, oxygen and ozone derived from life processes
are performing the short-wavelength UV-C and UV-B dissipation. On Earth's
surface, water and organic pigments in water facilitate the near-UV and
visible photon dissipation. The first organic pigments probably formed,
absorbed, and dissipated at those photochemically active wavelengths in the
UV-C and UV-B that could have reached Earth's surface during the Archean.
Proliferation of these pigments can be understood as an autocatalytic
photochemical process obeying non-equilibrium thermodynamic directives
related to increasing solar photon dissipation rate. Under these directives,
organic pigments would have evolved over time to increase the global photon
dissipation rate by (1) increasing the ratio of their effective photon cross
sections to their physical size, (2) decreasing their electronic excited
state lifetimes, (3) quenching radiative de-excitation channels (e.g.,
fluorescence), (4) covering ever more completely the prevailing solar
spectrum, and (5) proliferating and dispersing to cover an ever greater
surface area of Earth. From knowledge of the evolution of the spectrum of
G-type stars, and considering the most probable history of the transparency
of Earth's atmosphere, we construct the most probable Earth surface solar
spectrum as a function of time and compare this with the history of
molecular absorption maxima obtained from the available data in the
literature. This comparison supports the conjecture that many fundamental
molecules of life are pigments which arose, proliferated, and co-evolved as a
response to dissipating the solar spectrum, supports the thermodynamic
dissipation theory for the origin of life, constrains models for Earth's
early atmosphere, and sheds some new light on the origin of photosynthesis. |
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