I always get giddy when talking about Europa, as many astronomers do. It’s one of the most fascinating places in our solar system when it comes to the search for life. It has lots of water, likely contained in a subsurface ocean. It’s heated though a gravitational tug of war with Jupiter and the other Galilean moons. And, as of recently, it has a chemical production system that matches Earth’s. I wonder what goes on beneath the thick ice of Europa. Is there an ecosystem filled with alien life down there? Life in Earth’s oceans feels very alien, but creatures from...
Minerals are formed when geological or biological activity create unique combinations of elements. The type of mineral you get is dependent on the environment in which it forms. For geological minerals, pressure and temperature can vary to give different combinations that are difficult to replicate in a lab. For biological minerals, life slowly but surely undergoes processes that shift and shape minerals, usually as a waste product from obtaining energy. But with 3 billion years of life forming and reforming on our planet, springing up new diversity and losing countless species to extinction, there may be minerals that we simply haven’t...
