All life is the same age.

[pretender]

Life must all be the same age, This I believe as the big bang happened at once. Development is at a different age...

[Klaynos]

Life on this planet, or other planets?

 

As planets develop at different times then the start of life would be at different times...

[pretender]

The fundemental blocks of life must be at the same age accross the universe, as they were put down at the same time. At the big bang.

[Klaynos]

Well everything in the universe is the same age, but that doesn't mean that life was created on every planet where it was created (if it exists on more than one, and given the size of the universe is quite likely) at the same time, as it could be starting on a planet right now... There's nothing to stop that at all.

[[Tycho?]]

The fundemental blocks of life must be at the same age accross the universe, as they were put down at the same time. At the big bang.

 

Well kinda....

 

But the more specific building blocks for life, like heavier elements, chemical compounds, planets and such are still being formed. Life could have arisin way before life on earth did, life could still be coming about somewhere else in the universe as we speak.

[Forensicmad]

Before life could exist on Earth, we needed to have the heavy elements like gold/iron etc. In order for this, a supernova had to have taken place.

Our solar system is around 4.5 billion years old whereas the universe is estimated to be around 12 billion years old. The first life developed around 1.8 billion years ago (according to http://www.ecotao.com/holism/4_histlife.htm).

In order for life on Earth to develop it took the time for a whole star to die (maybe along with its own solar system). Now, in that estimated 10.2 billion years, countless versions of lives could have started at different intervals because all stars are of varying sizes and so varying life spans. For all we know, a supernova could have ensued 8 billion years ago and life developed in the remnants of that.

Therefore, it is probably incorrect to think that all life throughout the universe is of the same age.

[Bluenoise]

That's not true the first life appeared around 3.5 billion years ago. Eukaryotes appeared 1.8 billion years ago.

[bobosmokey]

If you percieve life as existence then yes. We are all the same age. But if life is perceived as growing, moving, reproducing, etc., then we are not the same age. It's all about what you think life is.

[mimefan599]

I see what ur saying. all of the very extremely basic things were created at the same time, only depending on how you percieve time. Time could have a definite begining and a definite end or it could not.

[sunspot]

The basis of life is only dependant on H, O, N, C, Na, K, Ca, Mg, S, P, Cl, to name the most important. None of these require supernova since the largest of these atoms can be easily formed by our sun. i.e., they are all period one and two atoms. Some of the trace atoms found in life like Fe in hemoglobin, Cu, etc., are not necesary for simple single cellular life. All the DNA, RNA and basic proteins only need, H, O,N, C, P, and a splash of S. The ion pumps need Na, K, Cl.

 

The atomic seeds of life probably first appear in many places within the universe as the first stars had formed and stabilized. There are always new stars forming, even today, causing the atomic and chemical seeds of life to constantly appear. The number of seeds that actually took root are dependant on the number of stars with planets that contain water and moderate temperature conditions. Life can exist in a wide range of conditions, however, starting from scratch is better served with moderate temperatures.

[JesuBungle]

Well I'm thinkin with things like worm holes in the universe, some of the stuff from the big bang could have time traveled and would be somewhat younger than the parts of the universe that didn't find worm holes. Is that possible?

[SkepticLance]

It's a wee bit difficult to say too much about life on other worlds when we have a sample of just one to go on. However, to extrapolate way beyond what I should, we arose in orbit around a third generation star. First and second are relatively deficient in heavier elements. Thus it is quite possible that life can appear only in third generation stellar systems.

 

If so, we are looking at a maximum of about 6 to 8 billion years. Not the 14 billion that represents the age of the universe. If we look just at our Milky Way galaxy, the oldest stellar systems are about 2 billion years older than ours. These older ones make up about 10% of the galaxy. Thus, life could have arisen 2 billion years before it did on Earth.

 

If it did, some should by now be super-beings. They should have visited the Earth (at 0.1c it takes 1 million years to cross the entire width of our galaxy, and 0.1c is theoretically possible). However, it appears they did not.

[pretender]

I was talking about the building blocks of life, these must have started around the same time, when it all begun with the big bang.....

[Ragib]

Building blocks of life, as in, energy? well yea, The Law of Conservation of Energy ensures that. But even the atoms were made of are all the same age. The energy used to make this matter may not have transformed into matter at the same time.