Abiogenesis Again?

This is a really common question. If abiogenesis could happen once, what's to stop it from happening again? Why don't we see new life every single time we open a jar of peanut butter or something?

And it's because the environment necessary for life to come from non-living material is super duper nutrient rich and just absolutely perfect for all of these different organic molecules to fall together in just the right ways. It's not an uncommon scenario here on Earth.

But the fact is that if a place like that existed here on Earth, it's very quickly going to be taken over by things that are already alive because it's just it's too perfect. It's a wonderful place to live. Bacteria are going to swarm in there and gobble up everything good about that place well before new life could start.

As far as how new life starts, that's half the point of astrobiology. As I've said in many videos about this, we have a tremendous amount of research about it. And if you had enough time, you could do it in a jar. So it's not a mystery. It's just not going to happen again anytime soon.