The hypothesis that life originated from self-replicating RNA molecules is called the RNA world hypothesis, commonly shortened to the RNA world.
The hypothesis proposes that an early stage of life relied primarily on RNA before modern cells evolved their division of labor between DNA and proteins. RNA is important because it can store genetic information like DNA and, in some cases, catalyze chemical reactions like an enzyme. Catalytic RNA molecules are called ribozymes.
This combination makes RNA a plausible candidate for an early form of biology: a molecule could potentially carry heritable information while also helping chemical reactions occur. Alexander Rich proposed the concept in 1962, and biochemist Walter Gilbert coined the phrase “RNA world” in 1986.
The idea remains a hypothesis rather than a complete account of life’s origin. Scientists still investigate how the first RNA molecules formed, copied themselves, and became enclosed in primitive cells. It should not be confused with the primordial-soup idea, which concerns early chemical mixtures, or panspermia, which proposes that life or its ingredients arrived from elsewhere in space.