Cosmology as a universal branch of science tackles, in particular, the evolution of the Universe and one of its wonders called organic life. These researches are associated with an astrobiology and a molecular chemistry and are aimed to enlighten the humanity about its divine genesis and holy destiny. They also speculate about any possible previous and current other forms of life governed by reason on other planets of the solar system and exoplanets located outside it because our and other worlds have been fascinating and stirring our inquiring minds and wild imagination for millions of years since the birth of homo sapience.

Some scientists like Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe, Professor Bill Napier, Dr Janaki Wickramasinghe and their colleagues at the Cardiff University’s Centre for Astrobiology claim, for instance, based on findings from space probes that life as it is originated rather in space than on the Earth, i.e. to be more specific inside such celestial bodies as comets. This theory is named panspermia and is widely advocated today due to the discoveries made during The 2004 Stardust Mission to Comet Wild 2 and The 2005 Deep Impact mission to Comet Tempel 1.They found a mixture of organic and clay particles inside the comets which can allegedly catalyze a conversion of complex hydrocarbon molecules which could have served long time ago as potential building blocks or elements for life. It is all quite possible due to a proved fact that comets consist of some well known radioactive elements which are capable to keep water in liquid form in comet interiors for millions of years, making them potentially ideal “incubators” for early life. Besides millions of comets in our solar system and across the Milky Way galaxy and the Universe contain far more clay material than the early Earth did, specifically the odds of life starting on Earth rather than inside a comet are at one trillion trillion (10 to the power of 24) to one against.

The other astrobiologists J. M. Hollis, F. J. Lovas and P. R. Jewell, Serena Viti, Keith Mason entertain and analyze another alternative hypothesis to explain the origin of life on our planet using structurally the simplest member of the monosaccharide sugars molecule called clycolaldehyde (CH2OHCHO) which plays an important role of a biomaker as the first monosaccharide to be tracked in interstellar space. It was spotted first in emissions toward the Galactic center source Sagittarius B2(N) and then with the help of IRAM radio telescope in France in the other less chaotic and turbulent outer regions of the Milky Way some 26,000 light-years from Earth by means of millimeter-wave rotational transitions. It signifies in fact that basic sugar could be quite common across our Universe, specifically in its potentially habitable parts hosting alien planets. Thus far, there is no consensus about a formation and synthesis of any such large complex molecules in the dense interstellar clouds by means of the polymerization of formaldehyde (H2CO) molecules on grain surfaces or in the gas phase. However such complex molecules may undergo assembly and isomerism from functional molecular groups on hard grain surfaces to produce complex interstellar molecules (e.g., methyl formate, acetic acid and glycolaldehyde) and therefore primitive prehistoric forms of life. This is, of course, great news for extraterrestrial-life seekers because glycolaldehyde – a basic unit of carbohydrates – is a key ingredient for life as it helps to build Ribonucleic acid (RNA), which is strongly considered to be the central building element involved in the origin of life on Earth.

One more approach is connected with mathematics as a proper language of universal evolution and is coined “evolutionary dynamics” which involves creating formulas that describe the building blocks of the evolutionary process, such as selection, mutation, random genetic drift and population structure. It is advocated by a Harvard University mathematician and biochemist Martin A. Nowak who basically uses some innovative dynamic equations and computer simulations to probe a possibility that the evolutionary force of selection preceded a process of replication that could explain a mechanism and sequence of natural emergence and further kinetics of the monomers of life within the simplest possible chemical system that can be described mathematically on a level of ones and zeros only. Eventually they randomly and spontaneously assemble on their own during the evolution into binary strings of information and polymers. Thus, in the 1980s biochemist Leslie E. Orgel showed a phenomenon that a strand of RNA can act as a template for making another strand of complementary RNA which is called non-enzymatic template-directed polymerization. The latter process can be accelerated and simplified if monomers of RNA or DNA are coupled with another compound element named imidazole or lipids or mineral clay common in the pre-biotic and pre-historic world some 4 billion years ago. All this data speaks about an origin of life, first, in forms of genetic diversity, selection and mutation which are qualities of a pre-life and, later, replication based on such genetic consequent constants as mutation and selection again. What is required eventually is for a few strings of monomers to develop at the certain stage in the history the ability to make copies of themselves and arrange a domination of certain strands of RNA on the primitive Earth. In this regard enough quantity of free monomers would have to be around to make replication primarily advantageous and the replicating strings must be able to use up the monomers faster than the non-replicating strings. According to mathematical calculations, only when the rate of replication went beyond a certain threshold would the equilibrium of the system change, allowing life to emerge and cancel pre-life forever.

Despite any other theories that life began on Earth in warm or cold pre-biotic conditions without any input from outside it is now increasingly obvious that its origin is extraterrestrial because the early days on our planet were extremely and harshly hot, dry and sterile. It is also now clear that 4.0 billions years ago space debris fiercely bombarded it, creating cataclysms equivalent to the detonation of countless atomic bombs and aborting any fledgling forms of life struggling to survive and exist before that period of time. This definitely implies that the process of genesis might have required help from some space starting ingredients predetermining the molecular peculiarities on Earth what was demonstrated above. Besides astronomers detect a range of organic compounds throughout the Universe, especially among the clouds and revealed that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are the most abundant class of carbon-bearing compounds in the inter-stellar space, trapping as much as 25 percent of the total galactic carbon in their molecular lattices. The conducted experiments showed that even at the extremely low temperatures and pressure of space, the UV radiation can break chemical bonds of atoms in molecules recombining them into unusually complex structures that would be quite impossible if these molecular fragments were free to drift apart (scientists Bertein, David W. Deamer and Robert M. Hazen). At the same time researchers found that interstellar amorphous ice when exposed to intense radiation typical in deep space, it too can flow what in turn explains a mechanism of an interrelation and reaction between organic molecules within the cosmic ice.

The early prebiotic atmosphere was a neutral one rich in carbon dioxide and molecular nitrogen which implies by “hot” accretion scenarios for Earth where any core formations took place rather quickly, leaving the upper mantle of the planet in an oxidized state. The early terrestrial atmosphere was dangerously dense of CO2, which is consistent with the early faint sun “paradox”. In these hush conditions the organic compounds would be totally dissociated. However, through modeling researches prove that dense CO2 atmospheres allow at least intact cometary organics to be delivered in large amounts and the hardier organics such as amino acids to survive. In this regard it is worthwhile to mention that comets are rocks or minerals and they can serve as containers, scaffold, templates, catalysts and reactants for a life formation and evolution over a substantial period of time.

Life is precious and not common in the Universe and all our attempts to locate any existed, current or new forms of organic life on other planets of the solar system or in other allegedly habitable regions of galaxies have not brought any positive results yet. Life is a divinity and a Holy miracle. It is a meaningful process consisting of a combination of states. It takes the humans a long journey to solve this puzzle of Nature and truly understand their meaning. Cosmology and astrobiology will bring them one day to a long desirable result.