Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking. Login or Take a Tour!
It's the best candidate for extrasolar life that's like our own. I think that's one of the major problems with trying to find life out there: we have no idea what form it can actually take (well, unless you subscribe to the anthropic principle anyhow)
True enough. But as we might completely overlook a extremely alien form of life, this might be a good start. There are arguments based on the valence of carbon atoms and the high-specific heat of water that suggest ours might be a popular setup for life-sustaining(?) chemistry.