Polar Aurora Belt as a Prebiotic Hotspot for the Origin of Life

This project explores the hypothesis that Earth’s polar auroral belts functioned as spatially focused hotspots for prebiotic chemistry on the early Earth. In contrast to globally distributed energy sources such as ultraviolet radiation or lightning, solar-wind–derived charged particles are guided by Earth’s dipolar magnetic field and precipitate preferentially into high-latitude cusp regions. This magnetic focusing creates geographically constrained zones of enhanced ionization, radical production, and plasma-driven chemistry. The project examines how auroral particle precipitation could have produced localized chemical environments favorable for the synthesis of prebiotic organic molecules, including reduced carbon species and nitriles, within a nitrogen- and CO₂-rich early atmosphere. Emphasis is placed on spatial heterogeneity, geomagnetic control of energy flow, and the role of magnetospheric structure in shaping chemical evolution. This framework provides a physically grounded alternative to globally uniform origin-of-life scenarios and highlights magnetism as an underappreciated factor in planetary habitability.