A central aspect of Astrobiology research concerns the delineation of live’s origin and its early evolution on our planet. In this talk, the speaker will give an overview of the current understanding prevalent in the field while also sharing some of the contributions that the COoL lab@IISER Pune has made towards these attempts. Discerning the aforementioned phenomenon also has important implications for figuring out life’s distribution in the universe. Importantly, the speaker hopes this talk will get us all thinking about our attitude toward the only home we might ever know!