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A shadow biosphere is a hypothetical microbial biosphere of Earth that uses radically different biochemical and molecular processes than currently known life. It could exist, for example, deep in the crust or sealed in ancient rocks. [citation needed] Silicon biochemistry (Organosilicon) Alternative biochemistry Silicon-based life
Silicon in a diamond cubic crystal structure. Like carbon, silicon can form four stable bonds with itself and other elements, and long chemical chains known as silane polymers, which are very similar to the hydrocarbons essential to life on Earth. Silicon is more reactive than carbon, which could make it optimal for extremely cold environments. [6]
They suggest that Earth-like planets may be very rare, but non-carbon-based complex life could possibly emerge in other environments. The most frequently mentioned alternative to carbon is silicon-based life, while ammonia and hydrocarbons are sometimes suggested as alternative solvents to water.
Since the advent of the microprocessor in the late 1960s, such machines are often classed as "silicon-based life". Other examples of fictional "silicon-based life" can be seen in the 1967 episode "The Devil in the Dark" from Star Trek: The Original Series, in which a living rock creature's biochemistry is based on silicon. [44] In the 1994 The ...
Whether there is life on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, is currently an open question and a topic of scientific assessment and research. Titan is far colder than Earth, but of all the places in the Solar System, Titan is the only place besides Earth known to have liquids in the form of rivers, lakes, and seas on its surface.
A new study suggests that the planet’s icy interior and liquid ocean could be insulated with a three-to-six-mile-thick layer of methane clathrate, which is solid water ice with methane gas ...
Researchers have created a solid-state battery with an all-silicon anode that could potentially deliver long life, high energy density and fast charging.
While these “mirror cells” could have profound medical implications, a new 299-page report warns that a mirror pathogen could spell the end of life on Earth, as such a microbe would avoid our ...