Science Forums 2

[UncleAl]

Aqueous systems are the only ones that support sufficient chemical complexity at reasonable temperatures and oxidizing conditions to bring forth life, much less intelligent life. Liquid ammonia has a vast chemistry, but its low temperature is detrimental to chemical kinetics and it requires an overall reducing planet. Odd-Z nuclei (nitrogen) are not as abundant as even-Z nuclei (aside from hydrogen; oxygen). Saturn's moon Titan, interesting for its supposed vast oceans of methane and ammonia, turned out to be a blob of damp mud. Not much ammonia, either.

It would be interesting to do the Urey, Miller, Ponnamperuma, abiogenesis experiment with -33 C liquid ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide, phosphine, water, and electric discharge. If there is no accumulation of a vast inventory of organics and their conversion (after a week or two) into coacervate droplets... that tells you a lot. You could do it at higher pressures to extend ammonia's liqud phase to ambient temperatures, past 100 C if you like. It would be an interesting experiment to see how versatile star tar was under non-terrestrial conditions.