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Study Finds Life on Earth Emerged 4.2 Billion Years Ago, 200 Million Years Earlier

Jul 12, 2024, 02:49 PM

A groundbreaking new study reveals that life on Earth emerged as early as 4.2 billion years ago, significantly earlier than previously thought. This finding suggests that an ecosystem was quickly established on early Earth, indicating the potential for life to flourish on Earth-like biospheres elsewhere in the Universe. The study also supports the concept that viruses have existed as long as cellular life and that a complex cellular organism, similar to modern microbes, evolved only a few hundred million years after Earth's formation. These revelations provide new insights into the nature of the last universal common ancestor and its impact on the early Earth system. Earth is 4,543,000,000 years old, and earliest animal life may have emerged over 200 million years earlier than thought.