Metal-rich hydrothermal vents may have sparked life on Earth

Life on Earth may have originated from metal-rich hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor. These deep-sea vents provided the necessary heat, chemical compounds, and metal catalysts like palladium and nickel to facilitate the formation of phosphate, a crucial building block for biomolecules. This discovery suggests that early life's essential components could have been assembled through inorganic chemical reactions in these extreme environments, mimicking processes now carried out by enzymes.