Conventional wisdom has long had it that Carbon-based life, so common here on earth, must surely be abundant elsewhere; both in our galaxy and the universe as a whole.
This line of reasoning is founded on two major assumptions; the first being that complex carbon chain molecules, the building blocks of life as we know it, have been detected throughout the interstellar medium. Carbon’s abundance appears to stretch across much of cosmic time, since its production is thought to have peaked some 7 billion years ago, when the universe was roughly half its current age.
The other major assumption is that life needs an elixir, a solvent on which it can advance its unique complex chemistry. Water and Carbon go hand in hand in making this happen.
While the world as we know it runs on Carbon, science fiction’s long flirtation with Silicon-based life — “It’s life, but not as we know it” — has become a familiar catchphrase. But life of any sort should evolve, eat, excrete, reproduce, and respond to stimulus.
And although non-Carbon based life is a very long shot, we thought we’d broach the issue with one of the country’s top astrochemists — Max Bernstein, the Research Lead of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA headquarters in Washington,D.C.
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