Golden jubilee year of Stanley Miller experiment and chemical evolution and origin of life

Abstract

I give a brief review of how some of the major players in the subject approached the problem of the origin of pre-biotic molecules on Earth. For paucity of space, I will start with the developments starting with Stanley Miller's experiment on abiotic synthesis of amino acids till the most recent work on numerical simulation of hydro-chemical processes of collapsing clouds and the evolution of complex bio-molecules. We are evidently far away from actually solving the problem of origin of life. What is clear, however, is that the formation of complex amino acids in interstellar region is indeed possible, independently, in many star forming regions inside protostellar disks. Possibly, the delivery of these important ingredients to the earth was done by comets and meteorites. Finally, I conclude that since only a small part of the universe is involved for a relatively short time to create the present life-form, far more complex and possibly 'super-civilized' systems are possible in this universe, and could even be present elsewhere.