It has been proven that carbon compounds can form in asteroids from the stuff that is already on them and the addition of UV light from the sun. We don't know how life formed in the first place so we can't be sure if replicating molecules can form from these compounds in outer space. After all a protein is a long way away from an amino acid and DNA is another magnitude away from that.

 

We have to remember that natural selection is the key to evolution. There has to be a reason for microbes to live in the atmosphere. I suppose competition for space on earth is a reason, but it would be difficult to get energy, except through photosynthesis.

yeah, but photsynthesis requires carbon dioxide and liquid water

it would have to be some newfangled solar-feeding that has no comparitive form on earth

We are the evolution into space! Don't think for space though.