Among the most enduring and perplexing questions pondered by humankind are why, how, and when life began on Earth, and whether life exists elsewhere in the solar system or the universe. Attempts to answer these questions have fallen under the purview of a number of areas of inquiry, including philosophy, religion, and, more recently, dedicated scientific inquiry. Scientific study of life’s beginnings necessarily draws from a wide variety of disciplines. Because of the complexity of the problem, geologists, chemists, biologists, and physicists, as well as engineers and mathematicians, have all been involved in origin-of-life research.

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