The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe · HackerPapers discussions

The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe — mentioned by lioeters

Thu, 27 Nov 2025 02:48:48 GMT

That gets into astrobiology. Theoretically life could have started as soon as its basic ingredients were ready. So not until things had cooled down a bit after the Bang, when there were heavier elements than hydrogen and helium; and some kind of land and water. > 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…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe — mentioned by exe34

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 14:20:37 GMT

my favourite hypothesis for the first life is the idea that the entire universe might have been habitable for a while: https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.0613 of course, it's very unlikely, but it's such a cool idea!

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe — mentioned by JumpCrisscross

Sun, 28 Jan 2024 23:17:12 GMT

> the time when the universe was at life supporting temperatures, was long before the formation of the first stars and fusion of heavier atoms than hydrogen Stars with rocky planets during the habitable epoch "lie ∼8.5 standard deviations (σ) away on the exponential tail of the Gaussian probability distribution of initial density perturbations," though "their abundance could have been significantly enhanced by primordial non-Gaussianity." [1] https://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.0613.pdf

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe — mentioned by umeshunni

Wed, 30 Aug 2023 21:28:56 GMT

https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.0613

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe — mentioned by negativelambda

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 08:05:11 GMT

This reminds me of a paper [1] where they find that... "In the redshift range 100<(1+z)<137, the cosmic microwave background (CMB) had a temperature of 273-373K (0-100 degrees Celsius), 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." [1] https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.0613

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe — mentioned by jonah-archive

Sat, 30 Apr 2022 05:49:48 GMT

The big bang was extremely hot; the universe now is quite cold (microwave background). It was a continuous process of cooling, implying that there was an interval where the entire universe was comfortable (there are at least a few papers on this, e.g. https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.0613 , but I like it more just as a strange thing to thing about).

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe — mentioned by ahwvd37js

Wed, 26 May 2021 23:22:01 GMT

I did my PhD in astrophysics, and I can tell you that the author's name has become synonymous with, shall we say, fringe ideas. I won't say crack pot because he is a legit tenured astronomer at Harvard, but I have seen his papers roundly critiqued on the merits at too many journal clubs to count. (Eg, life could have evolved in interstellar space https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.0613 ) Its a bit outrageous to claim he's Galileo and the rest of the community is the Church when he is so clearly using his tenure as a defense against the weakness, and untestability, of his ideas.

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe — mentioned by hchz

Wed, 20 Jan 2021 19:27:57 GMT

Regardless of the truth in this specific case, Avi has some very interesting ideas such as the habitable early universe. https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.0613

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe — mentioned by thearn4

Tue, 19 Jan 2021 16:14:15 GMT

Maybe life originated during the habitable epoch in the very early, very small universe and spread from there? https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.0613

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe — mentioned by superkuh

Fri, 27 Dec 2019 21:14:26 GMT

The habitable epoch of the early Universe, Abraham Loeb, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1473550414000196 https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.0613 , https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journa... >"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…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe — mentioned by throwaway2048

Wed, 10 Jul 2019 02:22:29 GMT

It is a pretty out there theory, but at one point the universe would have cooled enough from the very hot big bang origins to allow liquid water to exist everywhere, but not cooled sufficiently to cause everything to freeze. If any rocky planets existed at the time, maybe that was the origin of life which was much more able to spread widely due to the small size of the early universe. https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.0613

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe — mentioned by evanb

Sat, 20 Apr 2019 18:30:14 GMT

This reminds me of "The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe" https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.0613 where it is pointed out that for some time during cosmological evolution, the universe would have been quite comfortable and rocky planets (if any existed) could have had liquid water, with no need to be in a Goldilocks zone---the whole universe was Goldilocks!

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe — mentioned by evanb

Sun, 14 Oct 2018 10:50:02 GMT

This has received some serious consideration in Loeb's "The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe" https://arxiv.org/abs/1312.0613

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe — HN submission

Wed, 29 Jul 2015 01:02:58 GMT

The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe

4 points; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

The Habitable Epoch of the Early Universe — mentioned by evanb

Tue, 28 Jul 2015 01:01:30 GMT

Let's not forget about the habitable epoch of the early universe [1]. There's a good 7 million years near the beginning of the universe that in principle was inhabitable to Earth-like life. None can say if the physicists of that epoch (if there were any) had enough observational evidence to foresee their quickly approaching end. [1] http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.0613 * do actually I believe there was early-epoch life sophisticated enough to think up physical theories? No, but what does that matter?

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.