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A 3.48-billion-year-old stromatolite from the Dresser Formation, Pilbara Craton, Western Australia
A 3.48-billion-year-old stromatolite from the Dresser Formation, Pilbara Craton, Western Australia. Photo: James St. John · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons
Science & space · Early Earth, about 4 billion years ago · studied 1952 – today

The Origin of Life: How Did Chemistry Become Biology?

Unresolved1952 CE – 2025 CEPilbara Craton, Western Australia (early evidence)

Life appeared on Earth billions of years ago. How non-living chemicals first became something that could copy itself is still unknown.

In 1952 Stanley Miller, a graduate student working with Harold Urey at the University of Chicago, passed electric sparks through a mixture of gases meant to imitate Earth's early atmosphere. Within days the flask contained amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. The experiment, published in 1953, showed that some ingredients of life can form naturally, but not how they became a living cell.

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Connected dossiers

Europa's Hidden OceanSame open question · Europa's ocean is a target in the search for life elsewhere.The Fermi Paradox: Where Is Everybody?Same open question · How common life is depends on how easily it begins.

See The Origin of Life in the discovery universe →

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How to read the labels

EstablishedSupported by strong, converging evidence.
ContestedEvidence exists but qualified scholars disagree.
UnresolvedThe question is open; evidence does not settle it.
LegendComes from myth, literature or tradition, not physical evidence.
SpeculativeA hypothesis with little direct evidence so far.

Hero image: A 3.48-billion-year-old stromatolite from the Dresser Formation, Pilbara Craton, Western Australia. Photo: James St. John · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons. Evidence labels describe the written claims, not the image. Version 1 · updated 2026-10-22.