Electron microscope images taken during the analysis of the graphite specks, which were trapped within immensely old zircon crystals.

Living organisms may have existed on Earth as long as 4.1bn years ago – 300m years earlier than was previously thought, new research has shown.

If confirmed, the discovery means life emerged a remarkably short time after the Earth was formed from a primordial disc of dust and gas surrounding the sun 4.6bn years ago.

Researchers discovered the evidence in specks of graphite trapped within immensely old zircon crystals from Jack Hills, Western Australia.

Twenty years ago, this would have been heretical; finding evidence of life 3.8 billion years ago was shocking,’ said Mark Harrison, co-author of the research and a professor of geochemistry at UCLA.

‘Life on Earth may have started almost instantaneously,’ added Harrison, a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

‘With the right ingredients, life seems to form very quickly.’

The new research suggests that life existed prior to the massive bombardment of the inner solar system that formed the moon’s large craters 3.9 billion years ago.

Atoms in the graphite, a crystalline form of carbon, bore the hallmark of biological origin.

They were enriched with 12C, a ‘light’ carbon isotope, or atomic strain, normally associated with living things.

It suggests that a terrestrial biosphere had emerged on Earth as early as 4.1bn years ago, said the scientists writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

‘If all life on Earth died during this bombardment, which some scientists have argued, then life must have restarted quickly,’ said Patrick Boehnke, a co-author of the research and a graduate student in Harrison’s laboratory.

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