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Sources of life’s origin: A search for biomarkers

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Part of the book series: Cellular Origin, Life in Extreme Habitats and Astrobiology ((COLE,volume 20))

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Abstract

Until the commitment of the United States by President John F. Kennedy in 1961 to send a man to the Moon by the end of that decade, the only extraterrestrial samples that were available to science were meteorites. For the next four decades human presence in space was constrained to low orbital crafts After the commemoration of four decades from that event the scientific community is full of excitement for the next steps in Moon exploration by the United States, Europe, Russia, Japan China and India. On our own planet there are several sources of potential information that will help us in the search for biomarkers. Antarctica is given special attention.

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Correspondence to Julian Chela-Flores .

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Chela-Flores, J. (2011). Sources of life’s origin: A search for biomarkers. In: The Science of Astrobiology. Cellular Origin, Life in Extreme Habitats and Astrobiology, vol 20. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1627-8_3

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