It might seem counterintuitive, but if you want to imagine what life could look like on other planets, the key is to look at life on this one. Earth has so many different environments packed away in it, some of which look quite different from the brightly lit and oxygenated spaces we humans occupy. And those exotic locales can parallel the conditions found on other planets. Moreover, Earth holds the only history we know of how life has emerged, and untangling that history can tell us more about the relationship between geology and biology that continues to shape life today.
In this episode of Tiny Matters, I talked to astrobiologist Bonnie Teece about how scientists envision life on other planets. Listen to the episode if you want to learn about:
- how a mission to Mars in the 1970s shaped modern astrobiology research
- why astrobiologists like Bonnie study hydrothermal vents
- how Bonnie's background studying English literature shaped her scientific journey
