Читать книгу Astrobiology - Charles S. Cockell - Страница 29

In this chapter, we discussed ideas about “life.” The definition of astrobiology's subject matter – life – has proven to be extremely intractable, but has been a quest for over 2000 years. Ultimately, “life” may be a human-defined term used to encompass a set of organic material of special interest. It may not be possible to reduce it to some simple physically identifiable and definitive sets of characteristics. However, in the absence of a definitive statement on what life is, we can produce working definitions of life that identify the types of matter that interest us and fit within the broad concept of “life.” This allows us to advance our efforts to understand the origin, evolution, and distribution of “life” in the Universe.