Spontaneous generation is a superseded scientific theory that held that living creatures could arise from non-living matter and that such processes were commonplace and regular. It was hypothesized th
The goose barnacle
Claude Duret's 1605 Histoire admirable des plantes et herbes esmerueillables et miraculeuses en nature... illustrated numerous supposed examples of spontaneous generation, such as this tree generating both fishes and birds
Louis Pasteur's 1859 experiment showed that a boiled nutrient broth did not give rise spontaneously to new life, but that if direct access to air was permitted, the broth decomposed, implying that small organisms (in modern terms, microbial spores) had fallen in and started to grow in the broth.
Abiogenesis or the origin of life is the natural process by which life arises from non-living matter, such as simple organic compounds. The prevailing scientific hypothesis is that the transition from
Spontaneous generation
…by the mid-1800s. Since all life appears to have evolved from a single form approximately four billion years ago, attention has instead turned to the origin of life. "Spontaneous generation" means both the supposed processes by which different types of life might repeatedly emerge from specific sources other than…
If banded iron formation rocks of Archaean age (like these from Australia) are fossilized stromatolites, they would be among the earliest life-forms.
Modern stromatolites in Shark Bay, created by photosynthetic cyanobacteria
The Cat's Paw Nebula is inside the Milky Way Galaxy, in the constellation Scorpius. Green areas show regions where radiation from hot stars collided with large molecules and small dust grains called "polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons" (PAHs), causing them to fluoresce. Spitzer Space Telescope, 2018.
The earliest known life forms may be putative fossilized microorganisms, found in white smoker hydrothermal vent precipitates. They may have lived as early as 4.28 Gya (billion years ago), relatively soon after the formation of the oceans 4.41 Gya, not long after the formation of the Earth 4.54 Gya.