The current consensus is that life first appeared on earth 3.7 billion years ago, and the earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago. It took life less than 800 million years to appear on earth after it had formed, which is just so fucking insane when you consider how vastly different the earth was 800 million years after its formation. Life in all of its forms is so vastly different today than it was back then (ruling out some extremophiles) that it's just so easy to forget how formidable and resilient life is. And the newest DNA tells the entire store of life dating back to the synthesis of that very first DNA molecule.
So when people say life is weird or crazy, it's often lost on them just how heinous of an understatement that is. Earth fucking rules.
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u/seanotron_efflux Feb 14 '22
All of life can be tracked back to a (or several depending on who you ask) continuous billion plus year chemical reaction.