For chemical compounds to bind together with other chemical compounds, they need to be in something fluid so that they can freely move around. This is why there is no life on Mars or Venus, the water would be either ice or steam.
When water is in its liquid format, then any chemicals inside the water are free to float along until they touch another chemical, which bind together and eventually create large chemical strings and eventually life.
That is a simplified version but if you'd like to learn more about this process take a look at this Made Easy video
This is only part 3 in a series of 11 short videos, that I've linked on the left hand side of this blog.
However, the BBC article below is on the origin of water, the petri dish of life, on our planet:
Scientists have found new evidence that the water on Earth was delivered by asteroids during the earliest years of the solar system.
The development comes after two teams of scientists independently discovered the first “wet” asteroid, paving the way for the first experimental proof of a longstanding mystery surrounding the origin of water on Earth.
Scientists believe that the Earth was formed barren. During a period of intense bombardment, between 4.1 and 3.8 billion years ago, ice-covered comets and asteroids could have delivered water. It had been assumed that these asteroids would have now dried out.
But the new observations, by teams using infrared telescopes at Johns Hopkins University, in Maryland, and the University of Central Florida, show that 24 Thermis, one of the largest asteroids in the solar system’s main asteroid belt, is covered in a thick layer of frost
