Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Astrobiology

Frontier or fiction

  • News & Views
  • Published:

From Nature

View current issue Submit your manuscript

Astrobiology, the study of life in the Universe, is sometimes criticized as being a fashionable label with which to rebrand existing research fields. Its practitioners, however, argue that the discipline provides a broad framework for developing a better understanding of the frontiers of biology. A biologist and a planetary scientist offer their views.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Figure 1: Life around us?

EARTH: NASA; MARS: JPL/NASA; GANYMEDE: T. STRYK/JPL/NASA; TITAN: SPACE SCI. INST./JPL/NASA; EUROPA: NSSDC PHOTO GALLERY/NASA; ENCELADUS: JPL-CALTECH/SPACE SCI. INST./NASA

References

  1. http://astrobiology.nasa.gov/nai

  2. Darling, D. Life Everywhere: The Maverick Science of Astrobiology (Basic, 2001).

    Google Scholar 

  3. Dick, S. J. & Strick, J. E. The Living Universe: NASA and the Development of Astrobiology (Rutgers Univ. Press, 2004).

    Google Scholar 

  4. http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/category/arsenic-life/

  5. Wolfe-Simon, F. et al. Science 332, 1163–1166 (2011).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Reaves, M. L., Sinha, S., Rabinowitz, J. D., Kruglyak, L. & Redfield, R. J. Science 337, 470–473 (2012).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  7. Erb, T. J., Kiefer, P., Hattendorf, B., Günther, D. & Vorholt, J. A. Science 337, 467–470 (2012).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  8. Simpson, G. G. Science 143, 769–775 (1964).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  9. Bada, J. L. Science 307, 46 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Chyba, C. F. Science 308, 495–496 (2005).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Knoll, A. H., Canfield, D. E. & Konhauser, K. O. in Fundamentals of Geobiology 1–4 (Wiley–Blackwell, 2012).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  12. Kerr, R. A. Science 336, 1500–1503 (2012).

    Article  CAS  ADS  Google Scholar 

  13. Kivelson, M. G. et al. Science 289, 1340–1343 (2000).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Antonio Lazcano is a biologist in the Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad Universitaria, 04510 Mexico DF, Mexico.,

    Antonio Lazcano

  2. Kevin P. Hand is a planetary scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91103, USA.,

    Kevin P. Hand

Authors
  1. Antonio Lazcano
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Kevin P. Hand
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Antonio Lazcano or Kevin P. Hand.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Lazcano, A., Hand, K. Frontier or fiction. Nature 488, 160–161 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/488160a

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/488160a

  • Springer Nature Limited

This article is cited by

Search

Navigation