Forty years ago, Fred Hoyle and Chandra Wickramasinghe challenged the long-held belief that life originated spontaneously from a primordial soup on Earth - a concept rooted in Aristotelian philosophy and dominant in Western science for over two millennia. They proposed that life might have originated elsewhere in the universe and spread to Earth through a process called panspermia.
Hoyle and Wickramasinghe's research, supported by advancements in space technology and astronomy, argued that the origins of life required a cosmological scale beyond the solar system or galaxy. Their work contributed to the emergence of astrobiology, merging astronomy and biology, and indicated a shift from Earth-centered theories of life.
Their challenge parallels the Copernican revolution, which displaced Earth from the center of the universe. Similarly, Hoyle and Wickramasinghe's ideas suggest a new paradigm shift in science, moving towards a view of life as a cosmic phenomenon. Recent discoveries, particularly with the James Webb Space Telescope, further support this shift, indicating that a major transformation in our understanding of life's origins may be approaching.