Hacker News Reader

The timeline in the article shows the Late Heavy Bombardment dropping lots of asteroids on the Earth until about 3.8B years ago. The alleged stromatolites are from ~3.7Bya. 200My at that point isa but of a big deal.

There's also an active debate about whether the LHB actually happened, which adds to the stakes a bit: http://www.pnas.org/content/113/39/10802

Not in terms of life origin (we exist regardless of the answer) but it seems that having life that early pushes back the boundary of a hellish earth versus a blue marble earth, which may have implications on other hypotheses and assumptions about the evolution of the Solar system.

Admittedly, this is far, far from my field. Just trying to think through potential implications.

That's spot on.

The folks who argue for a "blue marble" Earth early on, even in the Hadean (>4 billion years ago) are fond of pointing out that while the name was chosen to evoke a hellscape, Hades in Greek mythology ruled over an underworld that was not particularly hot or hellish

At that point in time, yes 200my earlier is a very big deal. This is a fundamental question in geology, when did life on earth begin.