Chemical gardens as analogues for prebiotic chemistry on ocean worlds

Various studies have proposed that life may have originated near seafloor hydrothermal mineral-rich vents. The use of laboratory analogues of these environments, such as chemical gardens, allows creation of controlled, manipulable systems for studying potential prebiotic chemistry and origins of life scenarios on Earth and beyond. In this study we tested reactions of prebiotically relevant organic anions, pyruvate and glyoxylate, in the presence of chemical gardens under a set of conditions relevant to the early Earth and the Saturnian moon Enceladus. Reactions were run for up to three weeks and then analyzed. Prebiotically relevant molecules were synthesized from organics reacted in the presence of chemical gardens under early Earth-like conditions. As our reactants are readily available in geological settings, it is possible that similar self-organized structures could have played a role in prebiotic chemistry on early Earth or potentially even on other ocean-containing places in the solar system.