Astronomy Cast Ep. 209: Exotic Life

Is this arsenic based life?

We don’t like to cover news on Astronomy Cast, but sometimes there’s a news story that’s interesting, complicated, and rapidly unfolding – and it happens to cover an area that we haven’t talked much about. So today we thought we’d talk about the discovery of arsenic-based life, and exotic forms of life in general. Maybe we need to redefine our definition of life. Or maybe we just got introduced to some distant cousins.

Click here to download Episode 209: Exotic Life
Or subscribe to: astronomycast.com/podcast.xml with your podcatching software.

Episode 209 Show notes and transcript

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy has been with Universe Today since 2004, and has published over 6,000 articles on space exploration, astronomy, science and technology. She is the author of two books: "Eight Years to the Moon: the History of the Apollo Missions," (2019) which shares the stories of 60 engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make landing on the Moon possible; and "Incredible Stories from Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos" (2016) tells the stories of those who work on NASA's robotic missions to explore the Solar System and beyond. Follow Nancy on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Nancy_A and and Instagram at and https://www.instagram.com/nancyatkinson_ut/

Recent Posts

China is Going Back to the Moon Again With Chang'e-6

On Friday, May 3rd, the sixth mission in the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program (Chang'e-6) launched…

2 hours ago

What Can Early Earth Teach Us About the Search for Life?

Earth is the only life-supporting planet we know of, so it's tempting to use it…

2 hours ago

China Creates a High-Resolution Atlas of the Moon

Multiple space agencies are looking to send crewed missions to the Moon's southern polar region…

22 hours ago

Dinkinesh's Moonlet is Only 2-3 Million Years Old

Last November, NASA's Lucy mission conducted a flyby of the asteroid Dinkinish, one of the…

2 days ago

The Universe Could Be Filled With Ultralight Black Holes That Can't Die

Steven Hawking famously calculated that black holes should evaporate, converting into particles and energy over…

2 days ago

Starlink on Mars? NASA Is Paying SpaceX to Look Into the Idea

NASA has given the go-ahead for SpaceX to work out a plan to adapt its…

3 days ago