Based upon current cosmological theory - When is the earliest point that life could have begun in the Universe

Question

Based upon current cosmological theory - When is the earliest point that life could have begun in the Universe

Answer 1

The earliest Population I (metal-rich) stars are thought to have formed around ten billion years ago. They could have formed rocky planets soon after their formation, and these rocky planets could have developed life within a few hundred million years. Thus, between nine and ten billion years ago is a good estimate for when the first terrestrial-type life could have arisen. This predates the first life on Earth by some six billion years- more than one and a half times longer than life has existed on Earth.

However, it is conceivable that terrestrial-type life (life based on carbon and water) is not the only type of natural life possible in our universe. In 2007, scientists found complex behavior and helical structures (remniscient of DNA) arising in the interactions of dust particles in a plasma. If plasma life forms can exist, they could have arisen some time earlier than the first possible organic life forms, and depending on how they work could have existed as little as a few million years after the Big Bang (although a few hundred million years is a more realistic estimate). For all we know, even more exotic kinds of life (quantum life forms, perhaps?) could have existed very shortly after the Big Bang- possibly even thriving, evolving and going extinct before the Universe had aged more than a few seconds. However all this is very speculative.

Answer 2

It would have to have been after enough first generation stars had died to have seeded the next generation with heavier elements than just hydrogen and helium (and a trace of lithium). I saw a recent report that 1st gen stars may have had very short lifetimes (about a million years), so counting in the time it would have taken for the Universe to cool enough to allow stellar formation (about 300,000-500,000 years) and time to form (say another half million years or more), and you're looking at about two million years just to produce the elements required. These would then have to create the next generation, so let's say another million for those stars to form and create the first planets.

That gives us an upper threshold of three million years, assuming optimal conditions. If not enough heavy elements were produced, you'd have to wait for the number of 2nd generation stars to increase in number and maybe even start to die out, helping to seed the following generation.

I would expect the final answer to be somewhere between three to six million years, altho it may have taken much, much longer.

Answer 3

You would have needed to have elements higher than just hydrogen, helium and lithium to have chemical reactions form the precursors of life.  So it would have had to have been after the first generation suns went supernovae.  The first generation suns were formed within 100 million years of the birth of our universe, they were very large and short lived.  Some would have started going supernova at only 250,000 million years.  Then you would have needed planetary formation around a sun's accretion disk, then the requisite cooling of the planets (our planet took about 500 million years to become ready).  So it would have not been until almost 1 billion years total after the birth of our universe.

Answer 4

About 6,000 years ago when God created the Universe.  Oh, sorry, which current cosmological theory are you speaking of?

Answer 5

The universe is 13.7 billion years old. The universe began with an unimaginably enormous density and temperature. This immense primordial energy was the cauldron from whence all life arose. Elementary particles were created and destroyed by the ultimate particle accelerator in the first moments of the universe.

There was matter and there was antimatter. When they met, they annihilated each other and created light. Somehow, it seems that there was a tiny fraction more matter than antimatter, so when nature took its course, the universe was left with some matter, no antimatter, and a tremendous amount of light.