A trio of editors [Professors from Austria, Germany and Israel] present Life on Earth and other Planetary Bodies. The contributors are from twenty various countries and present their research on life here as well as the possibility for extraterrestrial life. This volume covers concepts such as life's origin, hypothesis of Panspermia and of life possibility in the Cosmos. The topic of extraterrestrial life is currently 'hot' and the object of several congresses and conferences. While the diversity of "normal" biota is well known, life on the edge of the extremophiles is more limited and less distributed. Other subjects discussed are Astrobiology with the frozen worlds of Mars, Europa and Titan where extant or extinct microbial life may exist in subsurface oceans; conditions on icy Mars with its saline, alkaline, and liquid water which has been recently discovered; chances of habitable Earth-like [or the terrestrial analogues] exoplanets; and SETI's search for extraterrestrial Intelligence.

A trio of editors [Professors from Austria, Germany and Israel] present Life on Earth and other Planetary Bodies. The contributors are from twenty various countries and present their research on life here as well as the possibility for extraterrestrial life. This volume covers concepts such as life's origin, hypothesis of Panspermia and of life possibility in the Cosmos. The topic of extraterrestrial life is currently 'hot' and the object of several congresses and conferences. While the diversity of "normal" biota is well known, life on the edge of the extremophiles is more limited and less distributed. Other subjects discussed are Astrobiology with the frozen worlds of Mars, Europa and Titan where extant or extinct microbial life may exist in subsurface oceans; conditions on icy Mars with its saline, alkaline, and liquid water which has been recently discovered; chances of habitable Earth-like [or the terrestrial analogues] exoplanets; and SETI's search for extraterrestrial Intelligence.

Scientists who have had the opportunity of being associated with Professor Egon T. Degens, to whom this Festschrift is devoted, have been influenced by his ideas on subjects as varied as: extraterrestrial organic matter, origin of life, evolution of organisms, isotope biogeochemistry down to more imminent ones such as the carbon cycle and its implications on climate. This variety is also reflected in the papers in the present volume contributed by colleagues who have known Egon or have worked with him. Egon Theodor Degens was born on April 16, 1928 at Inden, Germany and had his education in Bonn and Wiirzburg. After a stint at the Pennsylvania State University he returned to Wiirzburg to help set up one of the first organic geochemistry laboratories in the world. This laboratory was the breeding ground for some of the eminent organic geochemists at work today. Later, he joined the California Institute of Technology and began his work on stable carbon isotopes, and later on biogeochemical compounds in natural waters. From California he moved on to the east coast, which led to yet another productive phase at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. He was instrumental in the pioneering work carried out by the Woods Hole scientists in the Black Sea which is the largest anoxic basin in the world, and in the Red Sea where the first hydrothermal ore deposits on the seafloor were discovered.