Born in Lleida to a family of bakers, Joan Oró was fascinated from an early age by one of humanity’s most profound questions: Where does life come from? Determined to study biochemistry and the origins of life, he pursued his education in Houston, where he soon began groundbreaking research on abiotic synthesis. One of his most significant achievements was the synthesis of adenine from hydrogen cyanide, a discovery that provided fundamental evidence that organic molecules essential for life could arise from inorganic compounds under prebiotic conditions. His work built upon the Oparin-Haldane hypothesis, which proposed that early Earth’s “primordial soup,” with inorganic compounds when exposed to energy sources such as electric discharges from lightning, meteorite impacts, or other cosmic events, could give rise to complex organic matter and, ultimately, to the molecules of life, including DNA. Thinking that the origin in life on earth could come from other planets, Oró contributed to development of Astrobiology through his involvement in the Viking and Apollo space missions, exploring the possibility of life beyond Earth. Notably, during the Viking mission, when carbon dioxide detected in Martian samples was initially suggested for biological activity, Oró correctly argued that the findings were due to analytical artifacts rather than evidence of life. Joan Oró’s pioneering research laid the scientific foundation for understanding the chemical origins of life and continues to guide modern efforts to explore life’s potential emergence elsewhere in the universe.