The Origin, Extension, and Future of the “NASA Definition” of Life
Keith Cowing
The Origin, Extension, and Future of the “NASA Definition” of Life
The “NASA definition” enjoys broad popularity among scientists, particularly in the astrobiology community: life is “a self-sustained chemical system capable of Darwinian evolution.”
Imprecise and difficult to implement, it nevertheless captures important features of life interesting to researchers and public audiences. A product of the Exobiology Discipline Working Group, it received a four-sentence introduction in a book...