Final answer:
The major processes for the origin of life on Earth include chemical evolution, energy extraction, and information encoding and replication.
Step-by-step explanation:
The major processes that were needed for the origin of life on Earth are:
- Chemical evolution: The early Earth produced organic molecules through processes like the Miller-Urey experiments, which simulated the conditions of early Earth and produced fundamental building blocks of life.
- Energy extraction: Life required a means of extracting energy from the environment. One hypothesis is that primitive organisms used chemosynthesis, obtaining energy from chemical reactions, while another hypothesis suggests that early life utilized photosynthesis, using light energy to produce food.
- Information encoding and replication: Life needed a way to encode and replicate information. This capability likely arose through the formation of nucleic acids, such as DNA and RNA, which can store and transmit genetic information.