[cripplecreek]

Ive allways liked the question "If we saw life would we recognize it?" We tend to think within our own sphere of knowledge. Just because life on earth is carbon based doesn't mean life elswhere can't be copper or helium based.

[bannie]

Just what I thought.

[null and void]

Just because life on earth is carbon based doesn't mean life elswhere can't be copper or helium based.

Copper doesn't form large molecules. Helium is inert, doesn't bond with anything.

Sulfur and silicon, maybe...

[hosepipe]

[ What are the limits of organic life in planetary systems? It’s a heady question that, if answered, may reveal just how crowded the cosmos could be with alien biology ]

If evolution is a fairy tale for adults. This could be merely rumors about the fairy..

[BlazingArizona]

We tend to think within our own sphere of knowledge. Just because life on earth is carbon based doesn't mean life elsewhere can't be copper or helium based.

our search for life centers on carbon because of all elements, carbon is the most flexible at linking atoms of itself to form complex structures, from the benzene ring to buckyballs. Boron and silicon have a subset of this same power, so it is remotely possible that we will eventually encounter silicon-based life out there. There is a still higher probability that we will create it ourselves.

[Junior]

Carbon is popular because it has so many "attachment points," making for large numbers of chemical combinations. I don't think helium or copper have that many (though the latter could take the place of iron in osygen-dependent systems).

[Cronos]

Just because life on earth is carbon based doesn't mean life elswhere can't be copper or helium based.

Err... no, that's not possible. Copper doesn't have the ability to "combine" with other elements in such wide varieties as Carbon does. And as for Helium, duuuuuh, it IS an inert gas (like Argon, neon etc.) : inert meaning you can't really get it to combine with anything else very easily.

On the opposite end of the scale you have hydrogen and the group containing fluorine, iodine etc. that combine with pretty much anything very quickly.

Carbon combines quickly providing energy transmission -- hence we use Carbon bases to create plastics. Carbon is smack dab between those two (Inert elements and highly reactive elements) and has the second lowest atomic number in its "family", and the ones with higher atomic number won't combine so easily as they have so many more electrons, protons etc. The only exception to this is silicon, so a silicon based lifeform is well within the realms of possibility. Lifeforms based on other elements(bar the inert elements like helium) may be possible under extremely unusual circumstances.