How to Use astrobiology in a Sentence

astrobiology

noun
  • This field of astrobiology is a field of people who think about life on other planets.
    — Isaac Chotiner, The New Yorker, 8 July 2019
  • This paved the way for astrobiology, the study of life in all its forms on this planet and elsewhere in the universe.
    — Brianne Palmer, Scientific American, 21 July 2021
  • The search for life on other planets is part of the science of astrobiology.
    — Melissa Mohr, The Christian Science Monitor, 14 Apr. 2021
  • In astrobiology, appeals to complexity have been on the rise for a while now.
    — Natalie Elliot, Scientific American, 23 Nov. 2021
  • How life becomes life at all is perhaps the most central question of astrobiology.
    — Sarah Scoles, Scientific American, 13 Jan. 2023
  • The space agency has long been tasked with finding life elsewhere, which is why astrobiology programs are part of its focus.
    — Katie Hunt, CNN, 24 Oct. 2022
  • Take Europa, one of Jupiter’s largest moons, which is a prime target for astrobiology.
    — Jamie Carter, Forbes, 8 Apr. 2022
  • Some people believe that astrobiology is just a catchy buzzword used to garner headlines and secure funding.
    — Big Think, 7 Aug. 2025
  • But if astrobiology has revealed that Earth is honeycombed with life, the opposite seems true of Mars.
    — Marissa Grunes, Discover Magazine, 6 Apr. 2023
  • For decades, scientists have searched for alien life-forms—but the field of astrobiology has only recently become mainstream science.
    — National Geographic, 30 July 2020
  • But so was astrobiology—and now space science is consumed by the interplanetary and even interstellar search for alien life.
    — Robin George Andrews, Scientific American, 18 Nov. 2021
  • What is most exciting to you about the recent discoveries in astrobiology?
    — Phil Plait, Discover Magazine, 26 Jan. 2011
  • Repurposing that vintage kit for in-depth astrobiology was difficult—not least of all because of how hard the resulting data were to work with.
    — Jacek Krywko, Scientific American, 30 Sep. 2025
  • The field of astrobiology re-enacts this Life versus the living problematic on a cosmic scale.
    — WIRED, 21 Mar. 2023
  • Most of my work in astrobiology looks at anaerobic environments, which have a lot in common with the environments that produce farts.
    — Eric Spitznagel, Popular Mechanics, 25 Nov. 2019
  • Understanding these adaptations could refine future astrobiology missions in the quest to find signs of life.
    — Benedict Cosgrove, Newsweek, 19 Dec. 2024
  • The origins of life Not knowing how life originated on our own planet is a major showstopper for astrobiology.
    — Big Think, 17 June 2024
  • Researchers are hoping for another mission focused on astrobiology that would probe and measure the chemical compounds on Enceladus and its ocean.
    — Elizabeth Gamillo, Smithsonian Magazine, 9 July 2021
  • Titan’s atmospheric chemistry resembles that of an early Earth, which makes the moon an exciting target in the field of astrobiology.
    — Marina Koren, The Atlantic, 28 July 2017
  • The boundary between mainstream astrobiology and the fringe is the idea that extraterrestrials have crossed the abyss of space to come see us — and that the governments of the world have somehow kept the evidence a secret.
    — Seth Fletcher, New York Times, 24 Aug. 2023
  • But these big, broad questions are also critical to astrobiology; all of these processes enable and regulate the habitability of a planet.
    — Corey S. Powell, Discover Magazine, 18 Feb. 2021
  • How exactly Earth’s sunward sister world went so far astray is one of the greatest mysteries of planetary science—and a potential keystone for astrobiology.
    — Leonard David, Scientific American, 14 Nov. 2023
  • There’s more reason to believe the astrobiology push is a permanent fixture of NASA’s vision for its future.
    — Neel V. Patel, Slate Magazine, 21 Dec. 2017
  • Last semester, 25 students took Guinan's class on astrobiology, about the possibility of life elsewhere in the universe.
    — Author: Kenneth Chang, Anchorage Daily News, 13 Jan. 2018
  • Scientists ultimately built the field of astrobiology on the groundwork of that equation, Diamond argues.
    — WIRED, 11 Sep. 2022
  • This study of Mars is part of the efflorescence of the young field of astrobiology, which includes the search for potentially habitable worlds and the first example of extraterrestrial life.
    — Joel Achenbach, Washington Post, 23 Nov. 2022
  • News outlets received a cryptic message about a big press event, where officials would unveil something of great significance related to astrobiology and extraterrestrials.
    — F.d. Flam, Twin Cities, 6 Aug. 2025
  • Studying its adaptations could lead to breakthroughs in cryopreservation, medicine and even astrobiology—fields that seek to understand how life can endure in the most inhospitable places, from Antarctica to distant icy moons.
    — Scott Travers, Forbes, 8 Mar. 2025
  • As for rewards, the development of a technosignatures discipline might mirror that of astrobiology, which arose 25 years ago in response to the discovery of exoplanets.
    — Jon Gertner, New York Times, 15 Sep. 2022
  • Charles Cockell is a professor of astrobiology at the University of Edinburgh who’s written at length about the question of freedom in space settlements.
    — Clive Thompson, The New Republic, 3 Dec. 2020

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'astrobiology.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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