Did the genesis of life occur just after the Big Bang, almost 14 billion years ago?

After last night’s Bill Nye vs. Ken Ham (evolution vs. creationism) debate, it seems fitting to start the day with new research from a Harvard astrophysicist that suggests the first life in the universe may have emerged just 10-20 million years after the Big Bang. This is a few billion years before most scientists believe that the universe had suitable conditions for the genesis of life. If life really did emerge way back then, and then continued to travel through space on the back of asteroids and other interplanetary debris, it would seem almost certain that a) Earth was not the home of the universe’s first life, and b) life on Earth arrived on the back of an asteroid

Did the genesis of life occur just after the Big Bang, almost 14 billion years ago?





This type of article always draws my attention. Where, when and how did the building blocks of life originate?

Do we know enough about what actually constitutes life to even ask the question and expect to be able draw any meaningful conclusion?

Your thoughts please fellow ATS members.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by andy06shake


How do we know that our Big Bang was actually the first Big Bang or whatever triggered it? This is a process which probably happens quite naturally when certain things meet - make - break and start all over again. As above so below. We know by simply looking at parts of the ground that have been burnt and everything has died that within a short period of time, its all growing back again. As below so above?

I can't get my head around the long periods of time over this. I can measure time on earth but I though time in space was not tied to our luna and sun cycle so how do we get an accurate idea. Even if we could, there is a shut-off with numbers that my brain can't absorb.

IMHO its actually when life explodes into action that things happen and somewhere in space at some time this happened. The ancient manuscripts we have talk about some interesting things such as life starting with an 'out breath' which pushes energy so it might be a way of explaining how life started as people obviously wondered about it in the past. Revelation somewhere I think makes on oblique reference about folding space, its tiny, tiny bits of information that make me think the universe is like some kind of 'blender' or centrifuge around which everything goes, held by invisible forces which we have identified and we simply get recycled as and when its our turn through the mill.

I think the question is, who pushed the big red button that was labelled 'BIG BANG'

Whoever it was preceded the event and so life existed before the event referred to above.

Let's face it, really, we have no bloody idea what happened back then. It is all based on largely unsupported pet theories.

I put both science and religion in the same bucket in this instance. No one can prove a damn thing.

As entertainment it is OK if you like that sort of thing.

Looking for answers? Forget it, it is faster to wait till you die and see what the next step is. If you simply cease to exist, well, it aint gonna pay you no mind.

P

reply to post by Shiloh7


Excellent questions. I can only answer with some additional questions i'm afraid.

What iteration of the Universe are we even in, are we in an infinite cycle of Universes? Does time even flow in a linear fashion?

reply to post by pheonix358


There do seem to be more questions than answers relating to this subject, even when we do come to some form of conclusion that just seems to pose even more questions.

One has to wonder if we are even designed to be able to answer such queries.

reply to post by andy06shake


I do wonder if the idea of 'life eternal' is actually linked to the universe and not our small planet within it. We know a collision from another body could destroy our planet as we already have one planet missing leaving the asteroid belt. We also know planets disappear into black holes, but the universe, nevertheless goes on and on.

Great topic and food for a lot of thought.

Bigbang? how do we know there was a bigbang?
How do we get something from nothing?
Science hasnt established a bigbang happened yet

reply to post by andyshake


Here, this might help expand upon your thinking....or stop it dead in it's tracks...
Scientific American

Most cosmologists believe that the Universe, and with it space and time, exploded into being some 13.7 billion years ago at the Big Bang, and that it has been expanding ever since. A crucial component of the standard cosmological model--needed to explain why the Universe is so uniform--is the idea that a fraction of a second after the Big Bang, the Universe underwent a brief period of extremely rapid expansion known as inflation. Penrose, however, thinks that the Universe's great uniformity instead originates from before the Big Bang, from the tail end of a previous aeon that saw the Universe expand to become infinitely large and very smooth. That aeon in turn was born in a Big Bang that emerged from the end of a still earlier aeon, and so on, creating a potentially infinite cycle with no beginning and no end.

I went to a Christian high school.
I got an easy A+ in Earth Science, considering it's only 6,000 years old.

reply to post by borntowatch


This would be the evidence that most scientists use to argue for the existence of the big bang, take it or leave it.

The Big Bang

reply to post by andy06shake


I still find it slightly insular to presume our universe started with a big bang and that there was nothing beforehand.

Personally I think it was a "big collision" and all the "stuff" was in existance already.

Maybe life was a remnant of that collision and existed way before any time we could imagine.

Think bigger.

Genesis of life? Nope.

Everybody knows Two And A Half Men occurs just after The Big Bang Theory.

I expect many Christians to deny this with all they got. After all, life originating off world contradicts the idea that we were made in God's image.

Krazysh0t
I expect many Christians to deny this with all they got. After all, life originating off world contradicts the idea that we were made in God's image.

Personally I'm not so sure, but then I think my dogs may worship a deity that has told them they were made in his image...

Anyhow, logically it's hard to argue that the building blocks of life did come into play as part of the big bang (if indeed it ever happened), but building blocks are one thing - the circumstances that led to them coming together in just the right proportions in just the right environment to allow them to synthesise and lead to the creation and sustainability of the most basic forms of life that ultimately led to every living thing we are aware of is quite a different thing altogether.

There is no big bang, its infinite universe with parts always recycling.

reply to post by uncommitted


First, you aren't one of those people who honestly believes that humans are the most evolved life form on this planet are you? Reason I bring that up is because all life is equally evolved for its environment.

The fact that life may have originated off world heavily suggests that all those variables that had to be "just" right in order for life to emerge on this planet aren't true. Or rather, there are probably other variables that if true will cause life to emerge as well. This means, we aren't as unique as we like to think we are. Granted if life arose due to different variables, it won't look anything like us.

To me, the revelations in this article just confirm more of my opinion about this planet and the life that inhabits it. None of it is any more special than anything else. We already know that Earth itself isn't anything special. The universe doesn't revolve around it. Its sun is an average star. It isn't anywhere special in the galaxy. Its galaxy isn't anything special, again average. We've found tons of planets orbiting other stars, many of them Earth-like. The only thing we've been missing is the key pieces of evidence that say that life here isn't special. But we can already see that with the fact that there have been multiple extinction events with different lifeforms representing the top of the food chain. Also insects outnumber humans by a great many for every one human. Life outside this planet will further prove this idea and intelligent life outside this planet would slam dunk it.

The question isn't so much where everything in the universe came from, but where the universe came from, itself.

Although given my understanding of conditions "not long after" the Big Bang, things would be pretty inimical for life as we know and understand it. So, I think we need a definition of "not long after." That statement is pretty vague, sort of like "soon."

Are we talking "not long after" as in seconds, minutes, hours, weeks ... or "not long after" as in hundreds, thousands, millions, billlions?

reply to post by ketsuko


The article says this:

it seems fitting to start the day with new research from a Harvard astrophysicist that suggests the first life in the universe may have emerged just 10-20 million years after the Big Bang.

reply to post by Krazysh0t


"First, you aren't one of those people who honestly believes that humans are the most evolved life form on this planet are you?"

Not in the slightest! LoL

Edit: Sorry I can see that you responding to me. Had the window pulled halfway up the screen.

reply to post by Krazysh0t


So life formed at the same time that things cooled off enough to let basic atomic particles form? Somehow, I doubt it in all that radiation. We barely have basic particles, but they can also organize into something more complex?

If there was life then, it would have to have been something like no life we can posit today. Likely not organic at all.

Now, I'm not saying we have to be the first life in the universe, but I think Bill is thinking way too early if the Big Bang went down the way they say it did.