The recent study by Edward Moody and colleagues has pushed back the estimated age of the Last Common Universal Ancestor (LUCA) for all terrestrial life to between 4.09 and 4.33 billion years, which is hundreds of millions of years earlier than prior estimates based solely on fossil records. This suggests that life may have emerged shortly after Earth became habitable, challenging previous assumptions that life was unlikely during the Late Heavy Bombardment, a period of intense asteroid and comet strikes. If this finding is validated, it could reshape our understanding of early life and its complexities.
The findings by Moody and colleagues suggest that the Last Common Universal Ancestor (LUCA) may have existed between 4.09 and 4.33 billion years ago, complicating previous models of life's origins on Earth.
If Moody and his team are correct, the implications suggest that life must have arisen almost immediately after Earth became habitable, challenging the prevailing theories about the timeline of life's beginnings.
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