The amazing Life on Earth: fertilized in a bolt of lightning

"The uniformity of the earth's life, more astonishing than its diversity, is accountable by the high probability that we derived, originally, from some single cell, fertilized in a bolt of lightning as the earth cooled." 

Lewis Thomas

Stephanie on a Hollywood bed by Art T

Escherichia Coli

Scanning electron micrograph of Escherichia coli, grown in culture and adhered to a cover slip. Credit: Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIAID

E Coli is a prokaryotic bacterium similiar to the ones that 3.600.000.000 (3.6 billion) years ago, with the intervention of lightning storms, became the first living organisms and ancestors of the Stephanie on the top photo.

"Human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning."

Samuel Butler

"(...)But how was the first cell created? Charles Darwin proposed that the first proteins evolved from non-living matter. But how did this happen? Firstly, the earth was not the same today as it was 3 to 4 billion years ago when the first organic compounds where being formed. The early atmosphere was too hot for oxygen (O), nitrogen (N), and other elements to exist alone, as they do today. These elements combined to form methane (CH4), ammonia (NH3), water vapor (H2O), hydrogen sulfide (formula), hydrogen molecules (H2), etc. These where all, and thus the early atmosphere was called a 'reducing atmosphere'. Further, as there was no free oxygen to form an ozone (O3) layer to protect the earth from the harsh ultra-violet radiation (UV Rays) from the sun. Also, there where incredibly violent electrical storms, which where more violent than any which occur today.(...)" 

"(...)But how did these proteins and other organic compounds form the first cell? It is not very clear, but most likely, a group of organic molecules including proteins, and primitive fatty acids formed into a droplet, or bubble-like structure, which had the ability to combine with external elements, such as proteins not a part of it. Eventually, these droplets would grow, and divide. These droplets would eventually evolve into the first true cell. These early cells would have been autotrophs, which are organism which produce their own energy, usually from sunlight. Some of these cells would then evolve into heterotrophs (organisms which ingest organic material as a nutrient source)"

More here: The first cell