Exo/astrobiology in Europe

The question of the chemical origins of life is engraved in the European sc ientific patrimony as it can be traced back to the pioneer ideas of Charles Darwin, Louis Pasteur, and more recently to Alexander Oparin. During the l ast decades, the European community of origin of life scientists has organi zed seven out of the twelve International Conferences on the Origins of Lif e held since 1957. This community contributed also to enlarge the field of research to the study of life in extreme environments and to the search for extraterrestrial life, i.e. exobiology in its classical definition or astr obiology if one uses a more NASA-inspired terminology. The present paper ai ms to describe the European science background in exo/astrobiology as well as the project of a European Network of Exo/Astrobiology.