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A Brief History of Astrobiology

Introduction

With more and more researchers paying attention to astrobiology, we need to create a chronological and descriptive historical assessment of information for a better understanding of the story of astrobiology. Using the study developed, it was feasible to collect facts relating to the perception of other worlds beyond Earth from the ancient Greeks to the current day. Finally, it was able to conclude that, while astrobiology is a relatively new field of scientific study, the notion and search for life beyond Earth existed long before the advent of modern science. Initially, many researchers considered astrobiology to be the study of extraterrestrial life, and many scientists criticized it, like biologist George Gaylord Simpson because, according to him, this area of science has still not established that its object of study even exists but since astrobiology is not just concerned with extraterrestrial life his claims are not considered to be true.


Astrobiology is the study of life as a planetary phenomenon, intended to understand the underlying nature of life on Earth and the potential of life on other planets. Astrobiology tackles questions that transcend these separate scientific disciplines to comprehend the complete narrative of life in the Universe. The fundamental questions of what "life" means and how it came to be have sparked extensive philosophical debate.


Astrobiological research has the potential to have far-reaching implications beyond scientific discovery, as it addresses topics that have piqued humankind's curiosity for millennia. According to Briot, the notion of life existing elsewhere in the Universe is tied to the subject of world multiplicity and likely dates back to Greek thinkers. Indeed, these questions - 'How did life begin?', 'Are there other worlds like Earth?', 'What is our future as terrestrial life extends beyond the home planet?' - are age-old, according to Morrison. However, this marks the first time in human history that developments in science and technology have enabled us to give some answers to these questions.


Development in the field from 341 B.C. - 1100 A.D.

Although the word "astrobiology" just emerged in the twentieth century, Noack et al. claim that the study of life beyond Earth began more than 2000 years ago; This is not unexpected, given that the mere potential of life in other areas of the Universe, according to Briot, is tied to the question of the plurality of worlds, which has long been argued, originally between Greek and Roman singularists and pluralists. The word "singularists" refers to scientists who advocate for human uniqueness in the Universe, that is, the only manifestation of technologically intelligent life in the Milky Way. On the other hand, 'pluralists support the plurality of worlds inhabited by intelligent living creatures, i.e. the plurality of worlds.


The ancient Greeks and Romans were highly split over the existence of other worlds, particularly the prospect of life beyond Earth. Pluralist views originated with Epicurus (341 B.C.-270 B.C.), Democritus (460 B.C.-370 B.C.), and Leucippus (born in the 5th century B.C.). This group advanced ideas that are now established scientific beliefs, such as:

(1) Matter is made up of atoms

(2) The current condition of nature is the consequence of a long evolutionary process, and

(3) There is life elsewhere in the Universe.

Only during the 12th and 13th centuries was the possibility of a plurality of worlds discussed more widely, with Albertus Magnus (1193-1280), a Christian scholar in the West, commented the following: 'Since one of Nature's most wonderful and noble questions is whether there is one world or many... it seems desirable to ask questions about it'.


Astrobiology from 1200 - 1900

An ironic incident occurred in 1277, which Pierre Duhem and others argue is one of the fundamental origins of contemporary science. The Bishop of Paris, Étienne Tempier, asked, "Would it be feasible for numerous worlds to be formed from the First Cause?" - according to Chela-Flores et al., we characterize the genesis of life in the Universe as a first cause. This paradigm caused scientists to reconsider their positions, leading numerous writers to develop studies demonstrating that God might create multiple universes. Although few have insisted on God doing so, this process has resulted in a critical reexamination and critique of Aristotle's anti-pluralist arguments, citing figures such as William de Ockham (1280-1340) and the University of Paris rector Jean Buridan. Giordano Bruno, a 16th-century Italian Dominican monk, claimed that the stars were distant suns encircled by their planets and that the Universe is boundless and cannot have a centre. Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle, a French author, wrote Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds in 1685, not in Latin, as was typical for intellectuals at the time, but in French, since his goal was to make concepts accessible to popular culture.


According to D'Ischia et al., since Antiquity, the astronomical issues of the day and the methodologies employed to conceive and solve them have obviously been within the province of philosophy. According to D'Ischia et al., This mainly changed in the 16th century, when Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler reshaped astronomy into a contemporary empirical discipline, establishing testable theories based on systematic observations of the sky. Another example of a paradigm shift in vision, according to Schwartzman, was Sir Isaac Newton's (1643-1727) harmonious understanding of the Universe based on empirical observation and mathematical structuring, which was later revealed in his work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (5 July 1687) - two other editions were published in 1713 and 1726.


Although it is feasible to see the vast scenario of concept formation regarding the plurality of worlds, as a result, the hunt for questions concerning settings such as the Earth. Until recently, despite stimulating the curiosity of many science practitioners, the development of related research covering this theme gave a general impression, according to D'Ischia et al., of not being a scientific field because it was centred on speculative theoretical analysis rather than solid experimental evidence.


The 20th century onward

After the last century, one of the first scientists to write about astrobiology was a Polish engineer and mathematician Ari Abramóvich Shtérnfeld, in his paper published in La Nature. It begins with a historical account of Greek philosophy and then moves on to various ideas and speculations regarding life in the Universe since it was the cover story. The second section of Sternfeld's paper discusses the broad features of the 'Origin of Life,' employing reasoning from natural and astronomical sciences that led to the development of a new discipline whose primary goal would be to assess the habitability of other worlds. Astrobiology is the term for this description. It should be noted that this appears to be the oldest and possibly the first definition of astrobiology with its modern meaning. Sternfeld also discusses various theories regarding the origin of life and talks about panspermia (transfer of life from one planet to another) and life under extreme conditions. He even talks about the presence of an atmosphere on Titan, one of Saturn's moons. Lafleur defined astrobiology a few years later as 'the study of life elsewhere than on Earth'. Although Lafleur's article is often regarded as the first to use the term "astrobiology," Sternfeld's paper predates Lafleur's essay. Astrobotany was created in 1945 by Russian astronomer Gavriil Adrianovich Tikhov to describe the hunt for vegetation on Mars. Tikhov established the former Soviet Union's 'Astrobotany Section of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Kazakhstan' in 1947.


At the British Interplanetary Society conference in 1952, Irish physicist John D. Bernal inferred his speculations regarding the origin of life and said: "the biology of the future would not be limited to the Earth, and it would encompass a much broader spectrum, transforming itself into a true cosmobiology"; this was the first time this was being discussed at an international conference. Otto Struve, the first director of the U.S. National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), used astrobiology to study life beyond our Earth, and over time, this term gained popularity. Albert G. Wilson, the director of Lowell Observatory, organized the first American Astrobiology Symposium. The articles touched on topics related to astronomy and biology, such as physiological issues with astronomical observations and life on other celestial planets.

Two sizable organizations of eminent scientists in the USA organized studies into "extraterrestrial life" at the time. Carl Sagan participated in the first one, which focused on extraterrestrial life and was led by Melvin Calvin (1911–1997) of the National Bioastronautics Committee of the Board of the Armed Forces (1934–1996). The second panel was the National Academy of Sciences' Panel on Extraterrestrial Life, led by renowned scientist and geneticist Joshua Lederberg (1925–2008). In those days, the quest for life on Mars and the creation of onboard technology for the initial planetary probes dominated the conversation. At the time, this scientific endeavour was referred to as bioastronautics. Otto Struve organized the Green Bank Conference in November 1961, which sought to ascertain the likelihood of finding proof of intelligent life in the Universe. At this conference, the so-called Drake equation, which sought to ascertain the potential number of technological civilizations in the Galaxy, was first presented.


The inaugural International Symposium on Exobiology was held at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in February 1963, and Mamikunian credited Joshua Lederberg for coining the term. Lederberg used the word exobiology in a landmark study to refer to what he called "the biology of extraterrestrial origin." According to Lederberg, the main objective of an exobiological study is to contrast the many hypotheses for the chemical development of the planets, highlighting the key characteristics shared by each. Early in 1990, just before NASA's SETI activities began, the American organization held several seminars on the cultural elements of SETI (CASETI). In light of current developments, it is likely safe to say that the 1995 discovery of the first planet orbiting a twin solar system (known as 51 Pegasi) was one of the critical turning moments that affected how astrobiology research was conducted. After centuries of speculation on the existence of other planets, Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, two astronomers, made this discovery.


According to Rothschild and Mancinelli, the finding of creatures able to survive in extreme conditions from the middle to 1990s was one point of extraordinary significance for altering the notion of the viability of conducting research in astrobiology. In his 1974 scholarly article "Some Comments on the Evolution of Extremophiles," MacElroy had previously used the word "extremophile" and suggested that such creatures may exist. It is now recognized that there are living things on Earth that may be a feasible form of life on Mars, Titan, Enceladus, Europa, in another area of the Solar System, or even on an exoplanet, which was previously unfathomable to the "ancients." As a result, this second finding of microbes that can survive in harsh conditions extended viewpoints on life beyond Earth since it eliminated the necessity for it to conform to anthropocentric norms and increased the likelihood that life exists elsewhere in the Universe. It is also important to note that this discovery made life possible to be uprooted and carried from one planetary body to another.


The NASA Astrobiology Institute was established in 1998, and the first of multiple astrobiology roadmaps were developed, serving as the subject of study for the subsequent two decades. A group of Spanish and North American scientists led by Juan Pérez-Mercader filed a proposal to NASA at the same time the Center of Astrobiology of Madrid (CAB) was established in Spain. The request was to join the newly established Instituto of Astrobiology at NASA (NAI). NASA's Ames Research Center hosted a workshop on astrobiology's social implications in 1999. Constance Bertka, a planetary scientist, oversaw the American Association for the Advancement of Science's (AAAS) Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion programme in 2003 and 2004. This programme included theological and ethical perspectives on life's beginnings, extent, and future on the Earth and Universe. About 43 invited academics met in 2009 at the SETI Institute under the sponsorship of the NASA Astrobiology Institute to create a roadmap for "Astrobiology and Society." In contrast to the NASA astrobiology strategy, the proposed European Astrobiology Institute adopted astrobiology and society as its central topic between 2017 and 2018. (EAI).


Conclusion

As we present the historical timeline of the development of astrobiology as a discipline and think about the possibility of life outside our planet, we have to note that we are far from reaching the answers to those questions, but we have to keep trying to obtain those answers. Fry contends that it is wise to consider the repercussions of discovering living beings, whether in microbial, complex, or intelligent forms; This is true even in the absence of evidence for alien life or knowledge of the existence of intelligent life. Even the finding of rudimentary life would lead to debate about the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence and question many presumptions that guide human philosophy and religion.

Therefore, investigating these presumptions and their ramifications is not merely a scientific endeavour. It is a noble endeavour that requires a fusion of the human, social, and natural sciences, as well as the motivation and inspiration of its participants. In conclusion, even if extraterrestrial life is never found, this mobilization of the many agents and their domains considerably adds to the cosmic social viewpoint required in light of the present unrest and our future.


References:

  1. Nascimento-Dias, B., & Martinez-Frias, J. (2022). A brief review of the history of astrobiology. International Journal of Astrobiology, 1-12. doi:10.1017/S1473550422000386

  2. Dominik, M and Zarnecki, JC (2011) The detection of extraterrestrial life and the consequences for science and society. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 369, 20100236.

  3. Dick, SJ (2012) Critical issues in astrobiology's history, philosophy, and sociology. Astrobiology 12, 906–927.

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