Atmospheric aerosols as prebiotic chemical reactors

Aerosol particles in the atmosphere have recently been found to contain a l arge number of chemical elements and a high content of organic material. Th e latter property is explicable by an inverted micelle model. The aerosol s izes with significant atmospheric lifetimes are the same as those of single -celled organisms, and they are predicted by the interplay of aerodynamic d rag, surface tension, and gravity. We propose that large populations of suc h aerosols could have afforded an environment, by means of their ability to -concentrate molecules in a wide variety of physical conditions, for key ch emical transformations in the prebiotic world. We also suggest that aerosol s could have been precursors to life, since it is generally agreed that the common ancestor of terrestrial life Was a single-celled organism, The earl y steps in some of these initial transformations should be accessible to ex perimental investigation.