Multimedia Gallery
Life -- Hot or Cold Start?
Darwin proposed the theory that life might have originated in a "warm little pond." Today, some scientists study a contrasting theory that life originated in ice. Liquid veins that form in blocks of ice could have been an ideal spot for life to form, as they afford little elbow room for tiny, potentially life-generating particles to spread out, but a lot of time for chemical interaction.
To learn more about Charles Darwin and his contributions to science, see the National Science Foundation special report, Evolution of Evolution: 150 Years of Darwin's On the Origin of Species. (Date of Image: 2008)
Credit: Illustration by Zina Deretsky, National Science Foundation
Images and other media in the National Science Foundation Multimedia Gallery are available for use in print and electronic material by NSF employees, members of the media, university staff, teachers and the general public. All media in the gallery are intended for personal, educational and nonprofit/non-commercial use only.
Images credited to the National Science Foundation, a federal agency, are in the public domain. The images were created by employees of the United States Government as part of their official duties or prepared by contractors as "works for hire" for NSF. You may freely use NSF-credited images and, at your discretion, credit NSF with a "Courtesy: National Science Foundation" notation.
Additional information about general usage can be found in Conditions.
Also Available:
Download the high-resolution JPG version of the image. (2.2 MB)
Use your mouse to right-click (Mac users may need to Ctrl-click) the link above and choose the option that will save the file or target to your computer.