This idea was called biopoiesis, the process of living matter evolving from self-replicating but nonliving molecules.

Most approaches investigate how self-replicating molecules or their components came into existence.

A fundamental question is about the nature of the first self-replicating molecule.

Is it any stranger than self-replicating molecules should evolve out of the precursors of life?

Complex proteins appeared, leading eventually to self-replicating molecules, which in time led to the formation of living cells.

But, once a new self-replicating molecule had come into existence, a new kind of cumulative selection could get going.

Does it sound to you as though it would need a miracle to make randomly jostling atoms join together into a self-replicating molecule?

The highly energetic chemistry is believed to have produced a self-replicating molecule around 4 billion years ago.

As the star's chemical process are about one million times faster than Earth's, self-replicating "molecules" appear shortly and life begins on the star.

For the first time, however, scientists have begun to synthesize self-replicating molecules in the laboratory.