Or you can do it the way astronomers do it:
"Gosh, these two cans don't have the same behavior in this case. That's weird. Let's see if we can understand this."
Astronomers -- and astrobiologists -- cannot perform controlled experiments. Instead, they have to try to explain what the Universe has given them, what they can see. That's much harder!
Astrobiology and the scientific method: we have a problem. We generally can't do experiments! We cannot set up experimental conditions the way we want them. Instead, we have to observe what we have in the Universe: life here, water there, stars here, planets there.
In many ways, therefore, astrobiology is not (yet) a mature science because you cannot properly, generally apply the scientific method. Geology and astronomy are also not mature sciences ....