Xenobiology

Xenobiology (or exobiology, or astrobiology) is the term for a speculative field within biology which considers the possibility of, and possible nature of, extraterrestrial life.

Although this is a speculative field, the absence of life in the rest of the Universe is a falsifiable hypothesis, making Xenobiology a valid field for scientific enquiry.

For this reason the search for extraterrestrial life is of great relevance to xenobiologists; a famous equation, the Drake equation appears to predict that extraterrestrial life is almost certain to exist. However, there is no current evidence for extraterrestrial life (as of 2001).

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Xenobiology also features in much science fiction as the fictional science of the biology of alien organisms.

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See also:

• Carbon chauvinism
• SETI

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