Life from space: Astrobiology and panspermia | Zendy

Chandra Wickramasinghe | Zendy

AI Assistant Blog Pricing

Home ZAIA Blog

Open Access

Life from space: Astrobiology and panspermia

Author(s) -

Chandra Wickramasinghe

Publication year - 2009

Publication title -

the biochemist

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 0.126

H-Index - 7

eISSN - 1740-1194

pISSN - 0954-982X

DOI - 10.1042/bio03101040

Subject(s) - astrobiology , space (punctuation) , biology , philosophy , linguistics

How did life arise? Not just on the Earth, but anywhere in the Universe? Does life emerge readily on every Earth-like planet by spontaneous processes involving well-attested laws of physics and chemistry, or did it involve an extraordinary, even miraculous intervention? Science must necessarily exclude a miraculous option of course, but the other questions continue to be asked. Charles Darwin, the bicentenary of whose birth we celebrate this year, and who laid the foundations of evolutionary biology, never alluded to the origin of life in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species1. He had, however, thought about the problem and formulated his own position in a letter to Joseph Hooker in 1871 thus:

The content you want is available to Zendy users.

Already have an account? Click here to sign in.

Having issues? You can contact us here

Accelerating Research