Do We Need Planets?

The only data that we have so far involves life on a planet. But we cannot rule out the possibility that life in some form might evolve without the surface of a planet (or, as in our case, the oceans on the surface of a planet) or moon to help.

We can only speculate on the form that such life could take, but we do have evidence for the formation of simple chemicals of life in the interstellar medium. The primary question would be a way for those chemicals to become dense enough and warm enough to evolve chemically if no solid surface or liquid environment is involved.