Astrobiology

This article is about the scientific discipline. For the journal, see Astrobiology (journal).

Astrobiology (from Greek: ἀστρο, astro, "constellation"; βίος, bios, "life"; and λόγος, logos, "knowledge") is the interdisciplinary study of life in space, combining aspects of astronomy, biology and geology.[2] It is focused primarily on the study of the origin, distribution and evolution of life. It is also known as exobiology (from Greek: έξω, exo, "outside").[3][4][5] The term "Xenobiology" has been used as well, but this is technically incorrect because its terminology means "biology of the foreigners".[6]

Some major astrobiological research topics include:[2][7][8][9] What is life? How did life arise on Earth? What kind of environments can life tolerate? How can we determine if life exists on other planets? How often can we expect to find complex life? What will life consist of on other planets? Will it be DNA/Carbon based or based on something else?[1] What will it look like?