Earth & SkyGreek → English
Astrobiology
/ˌæstroʊbaɪˈɑlədʒi/noun
The study of the origin and possible distribution of life beyond Earth.
The Greek roots
ἄστρον
ástron
star
βίος
bíos
life
λόγος
lógos
study, account
Literally: “study of star life”
The story of the word
The word appeared in print in 1941, well before anyone could look, and lay mostly unused while exobiology carried the idea through the 1960s. NASA revived astrobiology in the 1990s with an institute of that name, partly because it covers the origin of life on this planet too and so has a subject matter even if nothing is ever found elsewhere. That was the standing complaint against the older term: a science with no specimens.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 20th century
Same family
exobiologyastronomybiologybiography
In a sentence
Half of astrobiology is done in hot springs and mine shafts on Earth.
The mission's astrobiology payload looks for organic molecules in the ice plume.