Dr. Odele Straub
Exzellenz-Cluster "Origins", München

From the Big Bang to the first cell

Beyond the stars of our Milky Way lies a Universe with a surprisingly ordered structure. How did the cosmic web with all its galaxies, stars and planets form and evolve? Which environments promote a chemical evolution and the emergence of biological processes? This is precisely the focus of the Excellence Cluster ORIGINS, which investigates the development of the Universe from the Big Bang to the emergence of life. The interdisciplinary research network has been funded within the framework of the Excellence Strategy of the German Federation and the Länder since January 2019 and builds on the research achievements of the Excellence Cluster Universe (2006-2018), which has attracted worldwide attention. ORIGINS uniquely combines the disciplines of astrophysics, particle physics, biophysics and the geosciences to search for the connection between planet formation and the formation of the first prebiotic molecules. Among other things, the scientists want to show that life is the product of a natural process, a logical outcome of the evolution of the Universe - which can be understood based on the laws of physics and chemistry and the initial conditions created by the Big Bang.