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Carl Sagan with a model of the Viking Lander in Death Valley California. Viking 1 and 2 were the first spacecraft to search for present day life on Mars, indeed, the only spacecraft to ever search for life outside of Earth. But with new discoveries about the possibilities for liquid water both in microhabitats on Mars and the subsurface oceans of Europa and Enceladus, and the ethane / methane seas of Titan this is a top priority for future missions.

Featured articles

Life on Mars:

• Possible present day habitats for life on Mars
• Life on Mars
• Present day Mars habitability analogue environments on Earth
• Viking program
• Allan Hills 84001 - the meteorite with tiny structures resembling cells

Life elsewhere

• Hypothetical types of biochemistry
• Life on Titan
• Life on Venus

Astrobiology:

• Astrobiology
• Abiogenesis - about the natural process of how life arises from non living matter
• Panspermia - transfer of life between planets on meteorites.
• Terrestrial analogue sites
• Murchison meteorite

Planetary protection:

• Planetary protection
• Interplanetary contamination
• Planetary protection for a Mars sample return

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Astrobiology

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About this site

This encyclopedia is based on astrobiology articles imported from Wikipedia. You are welcome to join in and help edit it. We welcome those knowledgeable in astrobiology especially, and your expertise and knowledge will be respected here. The aim here is to have a small friendly wiki, where we work together, and know each other. Do introduce yourself, here New editors

Other wikis

These wikis are also developed from Wikipedia pages originally:

• Microtonal
• Encyclopedia of Buddhism - set up by Dorje108 with me as co-admin.
• Doomsday Debunked

For the background to why we set up new encyclopedias, instead of working on the pages in Wikipedia itself, see background to this encyclopedia. Also see my science blog post here:

• Why It's Easy To Improve On Wikipedia In Specialist Encyclopedias (Ours Are For Astrobiology, Microtonal Music, And Buddhism)