[HarHarVeryFunny]

Yeah, but it seems impossible to experiment on the scale that would have happened in nature where there would have been millions of localized "test tube experiments" ongoing for millions of years.

Of course people can, and do, try to replicate early earth environments and self-assembling proto-cells, but I'm not sure how intellectually satisfying any self-replication success from these "designer experiments" would be, unless perhaps done on such a large scale (simulation vs test tube?) that any conclusions could be made about what likely happened in nature - just how specific do the conditions need to be?

[0x000xca0xfe]

My personal theory is that the conditions for life are plentiful in the universe but it probably took an unbelieavable number of random chemical/mechanical events to form the first proto-lifeform.

    The discovery comes after these building blocks of life were detected on another asteroid called Bennu, suggesting they are abundant throughout the solar system.

Yet actual life remains to be discovered...

[HarHarVeryFunny]

> Yet actual life remains to be discovered...

We've barely started to look, other than on Mars, and notably we are seeing possible signs there. There may even still be primitive life there.

If we do find life of Mars, or say Europa, i.e. in the very first places we look for it, that that would be highly suggestive that it is extremely common (at least in primitive form).

[edgyquant]

Also it seems that finding a balance where an ecosystem doesn’t kill itself with its own waste is probably harder than we assume. Earth life has totally changed the atmosphere of the planet, I would many it many cases even when life does for it kills itself early on