[Virginia-American]

The presence of liquid water and a source of energy (heat and electromagnetic), plus carbon, nitrogen, minerals, etc. It may in fact be too cold and have too little energy for much to have happened (compared to earth). But, assuming there's liquid water, either there's life, or there's several million years worth of Urey-Miller type reactions. If there is no life, I'm not sure it's fair to call it prebiotic.

[PatrickHenry]

Has anyone posted or linked to this article yet? I'm not in the mood to start a whole new thread with it:
Study Hints at How Genetic Mutations Led to Macroevolutionary Change.

[AndrewC]

But, assuming there's liquid water, either there's life, or there's several million years worth of Urey-Miller type reactions.

Consider these things

1. The energy density in the M/E experiment.
2. The resulting concentrations of the by-products of each and every zap of electricity.
3. The beginning concentrations of the reactants subject to the coming zap of energy.
4. The time involved in producing a soup of concentration X.
5. Consider the above values in relation to a planet with an atmosphere and an ocean.

How do the two relate? Is it just a difference in time? Or is there a possibility that completely different chemicals will be produced. Or is it possible that other chemical reactions might prevent a soup from being formed?