1. Introduction

Over many decades Hoyle and Wickramasinghe have compiled a powerful case to support the idea that life on Earth must be of extraterrestrial origin (Hoyle and Wickramasinghe 2000). Why should Earth be the only planet with life? Astrophysical spectra show dust clouds dominated by polycyclic-aromatic-hydrocarbons (PAH), strongly indicating that biological processes are commonplace in the Galaxy (Gibson and Wickramasinghe, 2010). The theory of cometary panspermia (Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, 2000) provides the logical mechanism for distribution of the seeds of life. But how are sufficient numbers of comets and meteors formed? How, when, and where did life begin in the first place, how widely is it distributed, and are life forms likely to be similar everywhere?

In earlier papers we have suggested an origin of life in primordial planets that began their condensations some 300,000 years after the big bang (Gibson and Wickramasinghe, 2010). This model is predicated by physical conditions prevailing in the HGD (hydro-gravitational-dynamics) cosmological model (Gibson & Schild 2009). Viscous stresses prevent gravitational structures from forming during the plasma epoch until 30,000 years (Gibson 1996), when protosuperclustervoids are triggered at the Hubble scale ct and expand at sound speed c/3^1/2. Weak turbulence at void boundaries produces protogalaxies fragmenting along vortex lines just prior to the plasma to gas transition at 300,000 years. The kinematic viscosity Ngas decreases by ~10¹³ from photon-viscosity values Nplasma ~ 4x10²⁵ m² s^-1. Gas proto-galaxies fragment into Jeans-mass clumps of Earth mass planets (Gibson 2000, 2010; Joseph and Schild 2010a). It is theorized that stars form by planet mergers in the clumps and then produce chemicals, oceans, and life (Fig. 1) in the hot-gas planets (Gibson, Wickramasinghe & Schild 2010).

In the present paper we explore aspects of this HGD model in greater detail, suggesting that the conditions within ultra-high pressure interiors of primordial planets at 647K provide optimal conditions for life’s first origin. Given the large cosmological volumes available and the numerous panspermial mechanisms for communication of life templates provided by HGD cosmology, first life most plausibly appeared and was scattered among 10⁸⁰ available planetary interiors produced by the big bang in the time period t = 2-8 Myr. We term this period the biological big bang.

2. Hydrogravitational Dynamics Cosmology

A major conclusion of hydro-gravitational-dynamics (HGD) cosmology is that viscous forces cannot be neglected in the formation of cosmic structures (Gibson 1996). During the plasma epoch following the big bang, viscosity triggers fragmentation first at 30,000 years (10¹² s) on ~10⁴⁶ kg mass scales of thousands of galaxies and finally at 300,000 years at galaxy mass scales ~10⁴³ kg. Protogalaxies of plasma fragment at plasma-to-gas transition at two mass-scales; the sonic Jeans-scale ~10³⁶ kg, and the viscous-gravitational Earth-scale ~10²⁴ kg. The density rho_0 ~ 4x10^-17 kg m^-3 and rate-of-strain gamma_0 ~ 10^-12 radians s^-1 are fossil remnants of the plasma when viscous-gravitational structures first formed at 10¹² s.

These trillion-planet-clump PGCs were independently identified as the dark matter of galaxies by Schild (1996) from the intrinsic twinkling frequency and brightness differences between galaxy-microlensed quasar-images adjusted for their different time delays. The difference twinkling frequency is rapid, indicating planet mass objects, not stars, dominate the mass of galaxies. The stable image brightness difference shows that the dark matter planets are in million-solar-mass clumps. Thus, cold-dark-matter cosmology fails to describe the gravitational formation of all the basic cosmological structures observed and how they evolve (Gibson 2000, 2010; Joseph 2010).

3. First Life in HGD Cosmology

Figure 1 outlines schematically the HGD scenario for first life that is envisaged and developed in this paper. The hot-hydrogen-planets (right) process the first chemicals supplied by supernovae.

HGD cosmology in Fig. 1 begins (Gibson 2004, 2005, 2010) with a turbulent big bang event (red 9 point star) that leaves a spin-remnant "axis-of-evil" AE (Schild and Gibson 2008), inflation of space, and nucleosynthesis of H and He plasma, with plasma-mass about 3% of the total, 97% neutrinos, and 0% dark energy L (Gibson 2009a,b). The smallest gravitational structures formed are protogalaxies PGs, which promptly fragment at plasma-gas transition into meta-stable PGC clumps of primordial-gas-planets PFPs. These planets condense and merge to form stars, and overfeed the stars as comets to form supernovae (white seven point stars).

The role of supernovae in contributing to dust and molecules in interstellar space was first discussed by Hoyle and Wickramasinghe (1968,1970,1988) and detailed again by Joseph and Shield (2010a) as mechanisms contributing to planet formation and the origins of life. Figure 2 shows the equilibrium gas phase abundances of the principal molecular species in a calculation appropriate to a supernova producing elements with solar relative abundances in an envelope possessing total hydrogen density 10¹⁸ m^-3. (10^-9 kg m^-3). The dashed segments for Fe, MgO, SiO₂ indicate that these solid phases have condensed and are in equilibrium with the gaseous component at the temperatures indicated. Note that iron condensed as a metal (whiskers) rather than its oxides according to this calculation. We note also that the gas phase molecular mixture in the ejecta includes molecules crucial in prebiotic chemistry – H₂O, CO₂, NH₃, H₂CO, HCN, and which contributed to the origins of life (Joseph and Schild 2010a). The formation of SiO₂ (clay) particles is also predicted and may also have a relevance to prebiology.

The molecules and solid particles such as are shown in Fig. 2, formed in supernovae near the central regions of PGC clouds, would be rapidly expelled and incorporated in the proto-planet clouds (PFPs) condensing further out in each PGC system. PFP planets impregnated with molecules as well as iron particles and clays may be expected to develop layered structures due to gravitational settling on free-fall timescales ~(rG)^-1/2 less than a million years. Melted by friction and gravitational potential energy of mergers, iron-nickel and molten rocky cores will be the first to form, surrounded by hot organic soup oceans under very high pressures arising from overlying massive H-He atmospheres (Joseph and Schild 2010a).

What makes primordial-fog-particle (PFP) planets perfect as the source of first life is their hydrogen-helium composition and the 3000 K temperature of the universe at 10¹³ s. Figure 3 shows the initial condition of a PFP gas planet at a time ~ 2 Myr when the universe temperature matches the critical point temperature of water at 647 K (Wickramasinghe et al., 2010). Water at its critical temperature is dominated by apolar linear and inverse dimers (Bassez et al. 2003) that are capable of strongly dissolving the otherwise weakly soluable apolar molecules of organic chemistry such as C, CO, CO₂, CH₄ and HCN, along with large H concentrations from the massive planet atmospheres.

Organic chemistry is complex, with ~ 2x10⁷ known organic chemicals and reaction networks depending critically on temperature as well as catalysts. The high-temperature, high-pressure, high-density reducing conditions provided by PFP planets with critical-temperature oceans, such as that shown in Fig. 3, permits maximum reaction rates after water condenses as liquid at 647 K.

With the addition of clay particles in suspension acting as catalysts and primitive templates we have chemical factories within large numbers of PFPs with the potential for life. The mean separation between "factories" is the nearly constant separation of PFPs within PGCs, about 10¹⁴ m (1000 AU). With some 10⁸⁰ such interconnected chemical factories in communication via meteors and bolides, a cosmic primordial soup unsurpassable in scale is existent from 2 to ~8Myr after the cosmological big bang. It is in this setting that a cosmic origin of life must occur; a view supported by studies of the genetic origins of life (Anisimov 2010; Jose et al., 2010; Joseph & Schild 2010a; Poccia et al., 2010; Sharov 2010).). Life patterns may be subsequently deep frozen as dormant cells in suspended animation that remain in this state until certain planets are heated to more friendly temperatures in recent cosmological epochs (Joseph and Schild 2010b).

It is theorized that stars form by mergers of PFP planets within PGC clumps. A million PFP planets would be needed to form a star. As planets surrounding a star slowly continue merging, a white-dwarf forms to continue conversion of supplied hydrogen and helium to carbon, oxygen and nitrogen until the star mass reaches the unstable Chandrasekhar limit of 1.44 solar mass. The spinning WD forms a planetary-nebula PNe of evaporated planets and finally explodes as a Supernova Ia event, spreading C, N, O, P, etc. life chemicals throughout the PGC clump and beyond. But this takes billions of years. Near proto-galaxy cores where sticky PGCs merge to high densities, very rapid planet-comet accretion rates mix away carbon-star cores to form elements up to iron-nickel, producing superstars that implode in less than a million years as Supernova II events. These superstars may provide the first-life chemicals for hot-PFPs, hot-Jupiters, and other hot-fragment masses produced as a million 10²⁴ kg primordial-gas-planets merge to make each 10³⁰ kg star.

Stars everywhere and at all times likely form by mergers of PFP planets within PGC clumps, not from gas clouds as currently supposed. Superstars, with masses exceeding 50 solar, then fully evolve to a type II supernova on time scales of one Myr and disperse r-process elements, rich in CNO and all metals, throughout PGCs and beyond in a short time. Thereby the early chemical enrichment of the universe evident in measured abundances of heavy elements in distant galaxies, and the chemical precursor to the emergence of life, occurred early in the universe; a view also supported by genetics (Anisimov 2010; Jose et al., 2010; Joseph 2000; Poccia et al., 2010; Sharov 2010).

4. Genetic Evidence: Life Did Not Begin on Earth

The genetic evidence is impressive. For example, analysis of molecular clocks indicates bacteria and Archae were present on this planet over 4 billion years ago (Battistuzzi and Hedges, 2009). The so called "last universal common ancestor" (LUCA) for archae and bacteria, had to have been a complex cellular life form. Evidence for archae and bacteria are present on this planet's oldest rocks, from 4.2 by, and probably required billions of years to evolve into prokaryotes given the genetic and cellular complexity of these species (Joseph and Schild 2010a). Likewise the ancestry of the LUCA must extend backwards in time for billions of more years (Anisimov 2010). As argued by Joseph and Schild (2010a) the LUCA could not have begun to evolve into archae and bacteria until at least 6 bya, and the common ancestor for the LUCA must have been derived from proto-cells billions of years before that (no sooner than 8 bya) and thus these ancestral proto-cells could not have begun to evolve until at least 10 bya (becoming proto-cells before 8 bya). This time frame thus leads to a period soon after the Big Bang.

Bianconi and colleagues (2010) believe life began after the Big Bang during the "Dark Energy Era" which presumably dominated following the hypothetical "Big Bang" over 10 billion years ago. As argued in this paper, the dark energy era, coupled with the period of rapid star formation followed by supernova, could have resulted in the synthesis and dispersal of the energy and elements necessary for life. Once life began, it was distributed by mechanism of panspermia (Hoyle and Wickramasinghe 2000; Joseph and Schild 2010; Napier and Wickramasinghe 2010).

5. Planet Formation and Life

The prospects for wide distribution of biological materials in meteors is substantially enhanced because the million times higher density of the universe at the time favored collisional interaction. A secondary period of enrichment occurs approximately a billion years after the big bang, when an aging population of approximately solar-mass stars evolves to red giant phase and widely distributes C-N-O elements by stellar winds and supernovae to a universe at lower density. These stellar properties occur primarily within the primordial clumps of planets that gradually disperse into the dark matter halos and disks of galaxies.

Planet mergers forming stars within a galaxy constantly recycle the reaction products. The reducing environment of HGD star formation explains why solar system planets have iron cores. For example, most of planet Mercury mass is in its >10²³ kg metallic iron core. Earth’s iron core is ~ 10²⁴ kg. Iron-nickel-metallic meteorites are ~90% of the 5x10⁵ kg total on Earth. So much metallic iron in planet cores is quite inexplicable according to standard star-driven planet formation models where a handful of hydrogen free planets are formed (only 8 for the sun) rather than the HGD prediction of 3x10⁷ PFP planets per star. We believe that the hundreds of known exo-planets so far discovered confirm the HGD prediction.

Figure 4 illustrates HGD mechanisms in action in a dramatic way within the Helix Planetary Nebula, thus supporting cometary-panspermia as an ongoing contemporary process within the galaxy (Gibson et al. 2010).

Self replicating chemical systems such as RNA and DNA in micro-organisms develop enzyme catalysts to increase their replication speeds. Seeds of life deposited on otherwise sterile planets convert nearly all available carbon to organic forms (Joseph 2000). The large number of planets per star and the powerful HGD mechanisms for wide scattering of the templates of life on cosmic scales will tend to homogenize the range of life forms in the universe via mechanisms of panspermia (Joseph and Schild 2010b; Napier and Wickramasinghe 2010). Even if PFP planets are cosmically isolated, physical and chemical constraints suggest that approximately the same life forms will develop through natural selection, possibly as a function of a cosmic imperative for life.

6. Theories of First Life Formation

Many assume life first formed on Earth.

According to the Earth-first hypothesis, the prebiological evolutionary steps (Pratt 2010, Trifinov 2010) may have taken place in submarine alkaline hydrothermal vents (Russell and Kanik 2010; Mellersh and Smith 2010) in far from equilibrium conditions (Mast et al., 2010; Nitschke and Russell 2010) and required various chemical interactions and divisions involving amino acids (McGlyn et al., 2010), polyphosphate-peptide synergy (Milner- White and Russell 2010), the creating of biosynthetic pathways and the emergence of sparse metabolic networks (Copely et al., 2010), and the assembly of pre-genetic information (Di Mauro 2010) by primordial cells (Fondi et al., 2010), with some championing compartmentalizaton first (Simoncini et al., 2010) others, vesicles (Koch 2010), and all this leading to an RNA world (Pucci et al. 2010; Tamura 2010; Volbeda et al., 2010) with life beginning on Earth.

Although modern cosmology has rejected a geocentric, Earth-centered universe, many in the scientific community continues to believe that Earth is the center of the biological universe, and fiercely resisting concepts that DNA and many diseases and possibly antigens on Earth are continuously supplied by extraterrestrial sources, despite evidence to the contrary (Joseph and Wickramasinghe 2010). However, all laboratory attempts to create life have consistently failed and all serious attempts to model probabilities suggest they will always fail (Joseph and Schild 2010a). Life chemistry is too complex to replicate with present technologies on human-life-time scales and there simply was not enough time and a lack of essential ingredients, for complex cellular life to form on this planet.

The standard Earth-based models for the origin of life, inspired by early suggestions of Haldane (1929) and Oparin (1957), are all based upon an unprovable article of faith. Faith comes in by positing the existence of complex chemical pathways that are yet to be discovered, reaction networks that are somehow capable of bridging the difficult gap between chemistry and biology. The total volume of possible Earth-based venues that serve as cradles of life, be it on the edges of primitive oceans or in deep-sea thermal vents, is minuscule compared to venues that are available in the wider space-time of the universe (Joseph and Schild 2010a). Fred Hoyle in his classic book and lectures "Frontiers of Astronomy", proposed the entire solar system as a better venue than Earth for the origin of life (Hoyle, 1952). Hoyle and Wickramasinghe (1984; 2000), extended the totality of cosmic cradles to include ~ 10²² comets in the entire galaxy. Although a geocentric position is avoided in such models, the sheer scale of the improbability of an origin of life on Earth points to even wider cosmic horizons (Joseph and Schild 2010a).

Serious estimates of first life probabilities give superastronically small probabilities under all conceivable Earth conditions (Joseph and Schild 2010a). Joseph (2010) argues that in an infinite universe which continually recycles itself, that life could have arisen infinite times in infinite locations, but also notes life need have only arisen once to spread throughout the cosmos via mechanisms of panspermia (Hoyle and Wickramasinghe, 2000; Joseph and Schild 2010b; Napier and Wickramasinghe 2010). However, it is the position of this paper that the continuous recycling model of an infinite universe is rendered unnecessary by HGD cosmology, as shown in Figure 5.

Kroupa et al. (2010) claim observations of Local Group galaxies suggest dark energy and cold dark matter models such as õCDMHC fail badly in predicting the observations and must be abandoned.  Five irreconcilable problems are listed in the abstract that are easily explained using hydro-gravitational-cosmology HGD.  Thirteen new ultra-faint Milky Way satellites are found near the MW disk, as predicted by HGD cosmology but not by õCDMHC.  From HGD, as PGCs freeze they diffuse out of galaxy cores to form the baryonic dark matter halo.  Spiral galaxy disks are interpreted by HGD as accretion disks for PGCs and their clumps as some of these halo objects are captured by tidal friction to form orbits and stars as they spiral back toward the galaxy core.

7. Click Chemistry of First Life

Organic chemists faced with the problem of synthesizing useful drugs have discovered the most reliable methods follow basic principles intrinsic to biological chemistry to maximize yield and minimize time and chaos, termed "click chemistry" by Sharpless et al. (2001). Figure 6 summarizes the basic ideas.

The thermodynamic basis of click chemistry reactions is their high values of thermodyamic driving force, usually greater than 20 kcal/mol. This reduces the numbers of unwanted byproducts. Following the example of RNA and DNA chemistry, molecular discovery processes employ enzymatic polymers as selective catalysts to speed the synthesis and avoid collapse of the reactions into chaos.

Considering the high speed of high temperature reactions expected in HGD hot gas planets and the large numbers of such nearly identical planets and their clumps in cosmic communication, it seems reasonable to expect from click chemistry similar outcomes in their productions of living organisms, starting at ~2 million years as oceans first condensed at the critical water temperature, and slowing down as oceans freeze at the surface ~ 8 million years after the big bang.

8. Evidence of Extra-Terrestrial Life

Carbonaceous meteorites Orgueil and Murchison provide very strong evidence for extraterrestrial life. Figure 7 shows microscopic images of cyanobacterial filaments presented by NASA astrobiologist Richard B. Hoover at the 2010 SPIE astrobiology conference in San Diego. Hoover concludes "that the filaments found in these meteorites provide clear and convincing proof for the existence of extraterrestrial life and support the hypothesis of an exogenous rather than an endogenous origin of Earth Life" (see Fig.7 bottom). Both meteorites are older than Earth and Joseph (2009) suggests a sophisticated organic biosphere has evolved on the planets that produced them and that life on Earth may have originated on these planets.

Evidence includes the amino acids, nucleotides, and other life-critical biomolecules found in both carbonaceous meteorites. An excess of L-amino acids, a property of the proteins in all living organisms, is consistent with life, and has no known explanation by abiotic production processes (which yield equal numbers of the D- and L- forms). The complexity of organic chemicals (millions) present in Muchison far exceeds terrestrial levels (Schmitt-Kopplin et al. 2010).

9. Red Rains and Extra-Terrestrial Life

Evidence of clearly extraterrestrial life with possibly reversed chirality DNA was presented at the 2010 San Diego astrobiology conference, Figure 8. A meteor passed close over the South Indian state of Kerala in 2001 during the monsoon season, producing a sonic boom and triggering scattered outbursts of rain with distinctive red coloration (Louis & Kumar 2003). Some 5x10⁵ kg of meteoric material is estimated to have been deposited in the atmosphere. The red rain appears to consist of organisms, an amazing hyperthermophile that survives temperatures in excess of the critical temperature of water 647 K, and displays a maximum growth rate at 573 K (300 oC), Fig. 8 (top).

Examples of red rain over history are not uncommon (McCafferty 2008), but no previous attempt has been made to identify why the rain is red. According to the Louis and Kumar (2003) studies the red mode of the organism is a resting phase. The daughter organisms are yellow or colorless, but grow and clump to form red spores, Fig. 8 (bottom right), similar to those originally collected (photo).

Follow up studies produced the scanning electron microscope image of the organism at the top of Fig. 8 (Gangappa et al. 2010). Transmission electron microscope studies show thick cell walls, and support many aspects of the life cycles shown in Fig. 8 (bottom right) involving daughter cells emerging from the interior of larger mother cells. Protein tests confirm the organism is biological, but standard DNA dye tests fail. DNA dye tests involve chiral molecules and would fail to indicate DNA if the red rain organism is an extraterrestrial representative of the shadow biosphere, where DNA chirality is reversed. It is a challenge to astrobiologists to develop shadow-biosphere DNA dye tests.

10. Discussion

HGD cosmology provides strong support to the Hoyle-Wickramasinge hypothesis of cometary panspermia within known laws of physics and fluid mechanics. The standard LCDMHC cosmology cannot explain the origins of life whereas the belief that life began on Earth is based on miracles of chance. Thus, some have created elaborate multiverse or infinite universe models to overcome this reliance on magical thinking (Joseph 2010; Joseph and Schild 2010a). Estimates are made using HGD mechanisms of how and when first life appeared that make miracle and multiverse models unnecessary.

As shown in Figs. 1, 2 and 3, the most likely time for life forms to first have a chance to appear is at 2-8 million years after the big bang when the first stars and supernovae of HGD cosmology have begun to spread life chemicals, particularly water, to HGD Jeans-mass clumps of primordial gas planets. This water was able to condense at its critical temperature of 647 K and has not yet begun to freeze at 273 K. Conditions to form and distribute life are optimum, producing a very rapid period of organic chemistry activity and exchange we term the "biological big bang".

Previous to 2 million years, such hot planets would simulate steam hydrocarbon reforming units that operate at 1000-1300 K at high pressures with nickel catalysts to reduce petrochemicals to hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Soon after 2 million years and the condensation of oceans, complex life processes should develop and be widespread throughout the cosmos by cometary panspermia mechanisms illustrated in Fig. 4abc.

The length of the HGD timeline for first life shown in Fig. 5 is not certain, but should be more than a few million and less than a few hundred million to spread throughout a galaxy. The rate of development of life is accelerated by the thermodynamic principles of "click chemistry" (Fig. 6). Since primordial planets in galaxy dark matter clumps develop in very uniform conditions from HGD, guided by the same laws of physics, thermodynamics and reaction kinetics, it seems unlikely that life forms developing in one region of the cosmos may be very different from life forms developed in another (Joseph, Schild and Wickramasinghe 2010). Since our horizon covers only about 10^-40 of the big bang cosmos, we are unlikely to be able to test this hypothesis.

The critical length scale for different life form developments is the scale of protoglobularstarcluster PGCs, which is 3x10¹⁷ m from HGD. Available extraterrestrial life forms shown in Figs. 7 and 8 appear to be from two different biospheres, with DNA handedness (chirality) reversed.

11. Conclusions

There is now considerable evidence the life did not begin on Earth, but has an ancestry leading back over 10 billion to 13 billion years in this galaxy alone. This suggests life was present soon after the big bang. We believe the optimum conditions for first life to develop and to become widely dispersed on cosmic scales occurs as a biological big bang event ~2-8 million years after the cosmological big bang according to HGC cosmology. This is the time period when oceans of water existed in hydrogen-helium gas planets at the critical temperature of first condensation. It is during this period maximum solubility and rapid reactions in many communicating planet oceans which can foster the hydrocarbon chemistry needed for development of life as we know it, and before ocean freezing begins.

Obviously, life had a beginning and must have been fashioned through principles of abiogenesis. Although it is impossible for life to have begun on Earth, it may have begun in the superheated watery oceans of these primordial planets, according to mechanisms described by Russell and others, i.e. deep beneath the ocean in an alkaline hydrothermal vents (Russell and Kanik 2010; Mellersh and Smith 2010) and involving a variety of chemical interactions and divisions involving amino acids (McGlyn et al., 2010) and polyphosphate-peptide synergy (Milner- White and Russell 2010), which led to the creation of biosynthetic pathways (Copely et al., 2010), and RNA-like worlds (Pucci et al. 2010; Tamura 2010; Volbeda et al., 2010) and the assembly of primordial cells (Fondi et al., 2010), and genetic information (Di Mauro 2010) thereby creating the first self-replicating molecules, and thus life as we know it. Life was then dispersed throughout the cosmos by mechanisms of panspermia.

A cosmological primordial soup cooked up in 10⁸⁰ hot primordial gas planets in clumps provided by HGD easily explains why all galaxies leave polycyclic-aromatic-hydrocarbon dust trails when they are observed to pass through each other’s dark matter halos (Gibson & Schild 2002, 2007a). Stars are triggered into formation by primordial planets in dark matter clumps, expelling large quantities of biological waste products from merging planets. Examples of this process in our own Galaxy are seen in the Helix Planetary Nebula (and others, see Figure 4) (Gibson & Schild 2007b).