THAT AS SOON AS THE EARTH HAD COOLED ENOUGH,
LIFE CAME INTO EXISTENCE

Explanations of how the first living organisms may have arisen suggest that the formation of life might have been almost inevitable -- that maybe something like clay particles provided a matrix enabling the right kinds of atoms to line up to form self-replicating RNA molecules.

Even if someday it is proved that life could have arisen like this, it still must be regarded as miraculous that the fundamental natures of the various atoms involved, and the laws of Nature that the atom sequences took advantage of, turned out to be "just right" for life to begin.

MORE INFO:

• The University of Arizona provides an illustrated page called How Life Formed on the Earth.
• Scientific American provides an online story on The Origin of Life on Earth.