what “carbon based” life means
In: Biology
All life as we know it is carbon based–that is, it’s primarily made up of all sorts of long-chain carbon compounds. Carbon can form very long stable molecules, which means it produces a whole variety of building materials to work with.
The only other element we know of that can do anything similar is silicon, and even then it only works if the silicon is combined with oxygen, so while SF authors will quite happily insert silicon-based lifeforms into their works, there’s a great deal of doubt whether such a thing could actually exist.
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