Are Conditions Right on Other Planets for the Existence of Life as We Know It?

Author(s)/Creator(s)

Nuri ParkFollow

Document Type

Poster

Language

English

Date

Summer 8-7-2020

Keywords

phospholipids, Mars, Europa

Description/Abstract

Understanding the origin of life is one fo the fundamental knowledge required to find life on extraterrestrial celestial. Among numerous phenomena that are driven by bio-molecules, self-assembly of the cellular membrane is considered as the most basic process in the origin of life. In water dominant environment of standard pressure and temperature, molecular interaction (Van der Waals force) among water molecules and phospholipids forces phospholopids to form lipid bilayer structure which is the proto structure of the cellular membrane. However, self-assembly of phospholopids in extremely pressurized wet environments has never been explored. Since liquid water in the solar system has been reported to reside inside the deep icy shell that is estimated to pressurize water up to 2GPa...or deep ground..., verifying the feasibility of self assembly of phospholipids in a corresponding simulated environment must be explored. Here, we present the molecular dynamics simulation of phospholipid (DPPC) in 1 and 1,000 with GROMACS molecular dynamics simulation. We have verified the self-assembly of phospholipids in both conditions.

Disciplines

Astrophysics and Astronomy | Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Funder(s)

Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs (ECA) of the U.S. Department of State

Funding ID

S-ECAGD-20-CA-0009

Recommended Citation

Park, Nuri, "Are Conditions Right on Other Planets for the Existence of Life as We Know It?" (2020). International Programs. 108.
https://surface.syr.edu/eli/108

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License

Additional Information

This work has been created with support from the Institute of International Education (IIE)/Fulbright - English for Graduate Students Program.

Accessibility Notice

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