Question

What is you were an astronaut and interplanetary explorer and you discovered “something” on another planet,like Mars that reproduced by itself, grew in size, took in food, responded to you or other stimuli, but did not seem to be made of cells or possess DNA or RNA. would you consider it to be living or nonliving?

Answer 1

I would consider it to be nonliving

Step-by-step explanation:

The characteristics of life demarcates a living thing from a nonliving thing. These characteristics include the ability to move, ability to respire, ability to reproduce, ability to undergo nutrition (take in food), ability to respond to external stimuli, ability to grow by increasing in size and more importantly must be made up of at least a single cell. Cell is the fundamental and basic unit of all living things.

This object found in Mars may be able to perform every other characteristics of a living thing e.g reproduction, irritability, growth, nutrition etc but to be considered as a living thing, it must consist of at least one CELL, which in turn must contain either a DNA or RNA molecule that carries information about its genetic content.

Hence, according to the universal CELL THEORY that states that "All living things contains one or more cells", this something found on Mars is not considered living.