Coates, Michael John2024-08-132024-08-1319791979https://hdl.handle.net/1828/17484There is a strong possibility that the material out of which the Earth formed was host to prebiotic molecules of varying complexity. The chances that these molecules had in surviv­ing in the early atmosphere are examined by computing a ser­ies of models with various effective temperatures and compositions, and seeing whether the atmospheric temperature structure was in the required range to support life as we know it. It was found that the required conditions were sa­tisfied for some of the models, but the majority of them had too high a temperature.119 pagesAvailable to the World Wide WebThesis