From NASA

Scientists have reproduced in the lab how the ingredients for life could have formed deep in the ocean 4 billion years ago. The results of the new study offer clues to how life started on Earth and where else in the cosmos we might find it.

Astrobiologist Laurie Barge and her team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, are working to recognize life on other planets by studying the origins of life here on Earth. Their research focuses on how the building blocks of life form in hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor.

Read the full press release at:
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/863/nasa-study-reproduces-origins-of-life-on-ocean-floor/

The study, “Redox and pH gradients drive amino acid synthesis in iron oxyhydroxide mineral systems,” was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The work was supported in part through the NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) element of the NASA Astrobiology Program.