Inhabited or Uninhabited? Pitfalls in the Interpretation of Possible Chemical Signatures of Extraterrestrial Life

The “Rare Earth” hypothesis—put forward by Ward and Brownlee in their 2000 book of the same title—states that prokaryote-type organisms may be common in the universe but animals and higher plants are exceedingly rare. If this idea is correct, the search for extraterrestrial life is essentially the s...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Stefan Fox, Henry Strasdeit
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2017-08-01
Series:Frontiers in Microbiology
Subjects:
Online Access:http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fmicb.2017.01622/full