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by hpeter 767 days ago
It's not alien origin, it came from earth. Maybe it's post-terrestrial ?
1 comments

The prefix extra- just means beyond/outside. It lives outside Earth (Terra) so it's extraterrestrial. Though if you said it's not diverged enough to be a separate species that would be a better objection.
1. The ISS drags into Earth's atmosphere, anything happening there is earthly. 20,000km further you'd have a point.

2. That's your own interpretation of the word. The actual definition of extraterrestrial life is life that did not originate on earth.

> The actual definition of extraterrestrial life is life that did not originate on earth.

While I would not consider something that evolved on a space station around Earth as extraterrestrial, this seems a bit restrictive. This would rule out any life evolving from Earth material on Mars brought by a rover as extraterrestrial even million years later. Also, if we discovered life came from an asteroid, we might have to consider ourselves as extraterrestrial with such a definition.

(though I would not know how to define the word)