AbstractThe birth-endowed organic fraction of the newly formed (hot) Earth was destroyed by thermal decomposition during the cooling epoch. After Earth cooled sufficiently, an early organic inventory was likely replenished by the impact of comets and asteroids — a process which continues even today. The present organic composition of comets and asteroids can provide information relevant to this secondary organic seeding of the planets, for comparison with scenarios leading to self-replicating organic entities. Although impacts no longer deliver organics in significant quantities, compared with the existing terrestrial inventory, small bodies can deliver their organics intact to Earth‘s surface while giant impacts may cause punctuated extinction of living species (and create opportunities for renewed speciation). Hence, the exogenous organic flux has great importance for life’s origins and terminations. Current knowledge of the organic composition of comets is reviewed, and recent progress in our understanding of the chemical evolution of organic material from its formation to its incorporation into comets and later into planets is outlined. The need for detailed quantitative chemical analysis of material obtained directly from the cometary nucleus is indicated.