- This article should be moved to Astrobiology, and then
current Astrobiology content merged with this one.
Xenobiology (also known as exobiology or astrobiology) is the term for a
speculative field within biology which considers the possible variety of extraterrestrial life. It also necessarily includes the concept
of artificial life, since any life form that might naturally evolve
elsewhere could conceivably be created in a laboratory using a future technology. It might be difficult to tell whether a truly
strange life form had in fact arisen in space, or was designed much nearer to home.
Although this is currently a speculative field, the absence of life in the rest
of the Universe is a falsifiable hypothesis (though it is yet to be proven false), making xenobiology a valid field for scientific enquiry. Likewise, computer simulations of basic life processes have made it
possible to do exploratory engineering of alternate
life forms (like left-handed DNA) to determine their characteristics.
For these reasons the search for extraterrestrial life is of great relevance to xenobiologists. Some contend that the number
of planets with intelligent extraterrestrial life can be estimated from the Drake equation if and when we ascertain the values of its variables. However uncertainties in the term of
the equation make it impossible to predict whether life is rare or common. Another associated topic in xenobiology is the
Fermi paradox, which suggests that if intelligent life is common in the
universe then there should be obvious signs of it.
There is no current tangible evidence for intelligent extraterrestrial life (as
of 2004). However examination of meteors from Antarctica which are presumed to have originated from the planet Mars have provided what some scientists believe to be microfossils of extraterrestrial life, although that
interpretation of the evidence is still controversial. In 2004, the spectral signature of methane was detected in the Martian atmosphere by both Earth-based telescopes as well as by the Mars Express probe. Methane has a relatively short half-life in the Martian
atmosphere, so there must be a recent source of it. Since one possible source, active volcanism, has thus far not been detected
on Mars, this has led scientists to speculate that the source could be (microbial) life.
Missions to other planets (such as Spirit and Opportunity to Mars, Cassini to Saturn's moon Titan, and a future mission to Jupiter's
moon Europa) hope to further explore the possibilities of life on
other planets in our solar
system.
Xenobiology also figures in much science fiction
as the fictional science of the biology of alien organisms. This use of the term
demonstrates the speculative generation of possible models of such life, e.g. silicon-based.
See also:
©2004, All applicable rights reserved as appropriate.