Bartlett and Wong in the USA, have suggested that the search for life on Mars and other extra-terrestrial bodies may be rendered too difficult by our attempting to find living systems (or traces of former living systems) identical to those on Earth (e.g. Carbon-based, using DNA and/or RNA as well as proteins made from the same 20 or so amino acids). They advocate a much broader formulation that they term 'lyfe' (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/jul/30/is-there-lyfe-on-mars-new-concept-broadens-search-for-alien-organisms).They maintain that 'lyving' things (on this planet and elsewhere) will have 4 abilities namely to 1) absorb and change free energy sources; 2) exponentially grow or expand; 3) restrict internal change when changes happen externally and 4) record, process and carry out actions based on information. Even on the Earth, although the vast majority of organisms depend directly or indirectly on the energy of sunlight, a few take their energy from hydrothermal vents.This suggests that lyth developing in alien environments, may have 'chosen' unEarthly ways of achieving the 4 abilities quoted above. Perhaps we need to look for alien life-forms (or traces of former alien life-forms) with fewer preconceptions about how to find them?
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