The search extraterrestrial life is primarily a science of first discoveries, as commanders turned to pioneers scour the galaxy in search of habitable worlds, and indeed, many earth-like worlds with indigenous lifeforms have already been recorded ever since humanity first left its home and more recently, even outside the so-called 'galactic bubble', which hosts the majority of human activity in the galaxy. However, little is known of the evolutionary histories of such lifeforms although many of the systems rival or exceed our own origins in age. The emerging field of evolutionary Xenobiology studies the evolutionary histories, ecosystems and molecular systems of alien worlds. Of particular interest, is the question of how life may have begun in systems different from our own. While carbon may provide the framework for the chemistry, the organic chemistry need not to be similar to that of our own, and indeed, the known number of self-replicating systems may rival the number of systems hosting alien lifeforms, although debates exist on whether each system should be treated as its own or whether similarities in chemistry and principles could validate the usage of a common term, while evolutionary origins are, of course believed to be different. (Save for certain, less scientifically rigorous groups who claim life may have been seeded from the same origin multiple times in different systems around the galaxy.)

Of particular interest in Evolutionary studies are forays into ancient alien worlds, which may exceed the age of Earth. Such worlds could host diverse lifeforms with long evolutionary histories, but with molecular biology different from our own. It is interesting to consider how the molecular systems and principles may effect the evolution of life itself, perhaps taking a different path from that of the life on earth. While evolutionary principles apply into any self-replicating organism, the genetic rules may turn out to be different in each different molecular system. One such example of an ancient world, which could exceed our own in age is the system designated as "Swoilz JD-I b1-4", located in the namesake region, which intertwines with Synuefe in the orion Spur, hosting countless numbers of class M stars low in mass and luminosity. The system in question consists of a red dwarf, orbited by a water-world hosting an ammonia-rich atmosphere. The star's age is estimated at roughly 8 billion years, which is twice the age of Sol. Furthermore, as red dwarfs below 0.35 solar masses burn their fuel at a slow and even rates, they may reach ages of trillions of years, hosting environments habitable for carbon-based life for what is eons compared to the relatively short history of humans. In our case, the planet seems to be hosting a plethora of carbon-based lifeforms in its seas. However, given the cursory nature of my excursion, it is difficult to make accurate estimates of their evolutionary histories and lineages, or even the nature of the self-replicating mechanisms. My hope is to gather a range of representative samples and bring them back to scientific community, so that studies in molecular xenobiology may uncover the principal mechanisms, paving the way for further research in genetics, to decipher the evolutionary relationships of these lifeforms.

While life on earth seems to have begun only once, (or at the very least, there are is no evidence for a different scenario), this need not be the case for systems different of our own. It may be that a multitude of different solutions exist to create viable replicators similar in function to that of the DNA, RNA and proteins which make up all terrestrial lifeforms, but with their own intricate rule sets. Evolutionary histories of systems hosting not a singular but multiple different self-replicating systems (if such systems indeed exist) may revolutionize our understanding of the nature of evolution. Ongoing research in the emerging science of evolutionary xenobiology will benefit from forays such as these to both long-lived and young stellar systems.

This ongoing Study is funded by the Global Unaligned Scientific Consortium for Biology of Distant Worlds and is a part of larger for a meta-analysis of foreign self-replicating systems and their evolutionary principles. (grant number 37UM-073B)