3 Types Of Non-Carbon Life
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Carbon is the foundation of all known life, but what if life could exist without it?
In this episode we explore one of the most fascinating ideas in astrobiology: silicon-based life.
Silicon shares many of carbon’s chemical traits, but also comes with serious challenges, it bonds too strongly with oxygen, requires much energy to build complex molecules and quickly breaks down in water.
Yet under the right conditions, it could thrive.
Recent research from MIT (2020) suggests that silicon chemistry may actually be stable in concentrated sulfuric acid, an environment deadly to carbon-based life.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles...
0:00 - Intro
0:41 - Silicon
1:26 - Challenges with silicon I : Oxygen
2:12 - Challenges with silicon II : Energy
3:32 - Challenges with silicon III : Water
4:17 - Silicon-based life
6:25 - Venus
7:46 - Jupiter/Io-like systems
9:10 - Red Dwarf planets
11:15 - Outro
Media Credits
NASA / JPL-Caltech
Periodic Table Image
"19-column periodic table"
Author: Sandbh
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
No affiliations or endorsements are implied.
#AlienLife #Astrobiology #NASA #Exoplanets #SpeculativeEvolution #SpeculativeBiology #ScienceFiction #SciFi #Venus #Jupiter #Io #RedDwarfs