Extraterrestrial exploration and the origin of life

The principal theory about the origin of life holds that life is the evolutionary culmination of processes involving the production of complex organic molecules from simple precursors (chemical evolution) and through increasing complexity, the eventual evolution of “living” systems and subsequent biological evolution. The beginning of this chain of events was the production of the elemental precursors (C, H, N, O, along with P and S) in the stars of the universe. Just how they were formed and distributed and what role they played in early planetary history is fundamental to our concept of the origin of life and the subject of this article.