Billions of years ago, the first sign of life emerged on Earth. Today, life thrives in all forms, each organism sharing the elemental building blocks forged in the stars. But how exactly did this miraculous event unfold? Could life have arisen from clay, ancient primordial oceans or deep-sea thermal vents? Or could it have traveled here via meteorites from Mars? As we probe the past, astronomers turn their telescopes to exoplanets to uncover vital clues about our own origins on planet Earth.