Introduction to the Special Issue: Abstracts from the 9th European Workshop on Astrobiology, Brussels, October 12–14, 2009

The 9th European Workshop on Astrobiology “EANA’09”, annual meeting of European Astrobiology Network Association EANA (), was held in the Royal Library of Brussels, Belgium, from October 12–14, 2009, hosted by the Belgian Astrobiology Group BAG (). A main section of EANA’09 was devoted to sessions paying homage to Darwin’s theory of evolution, thereby celebrating the 150th anniversary of the first publication of the path-finding book “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” and the anniversary of the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin: 1. In Homage to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution: Prebiotic Chemical Evolution 2. In Homage to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution: Early Biosphere and Biological Evolutio