Feature : Astrobiology: The search for life beyond the Earth

✍ Scribed by Monica M. Grady

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 142 KB
• Volume: 19
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0266-6979
• DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-2451.2003.00403.x

✦ Synopsis

Over the past decade, planets have been discovered that orbit other stars, a vast ocean has been detected below the icy crust of Jupiter's satellite, Europa, and fossils have been reported in a rock from Mars. On Earth, micro‐organisms have been identified that inhabit environments previously thought to be too inhospitable to support life. All these observations have helped to define the interdisciplinary subject that has come to be known as astrobiology.