2013/12/02 by Abraham Loeb · 2 voices · 3 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Earth Systems and Cosmic Evolution #Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life #astro-ph.CO #astro-ph.EP #gr-qc #hep-ph #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s1473550414000196
openalex publication_date 2014/09/09 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Abstract In the redshift range 100≲(1+ z )≲137, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) had a temperature of 273–373 K (0–100°C), allowing early rocky planets (if any existed) to have liquid water chemistry on their surface and be habitable, irrespective of their distance from a star. In the standard ΛCDM cosmology, the first star-forming halos within our Hubble volume started collapsing at these redshifts, allowing the chemistry of life to possibly begin when the Universe was merely 10–17 million years old. The possibility of life starting when the average matter density was a million times bigger than it is today is not in agreement with the anthropic explanation for the low value of the cosmological constant.