Whether it’s living in boiling water, breathing sulfur, or eating radiation, we’ve found life forms that do just that right here on Earth:
● Among the life forms known as extremophiles are many creatures that no scientist expected to find. That includes the Deinococcus radiodurans bacterium which can survive “15,000 gray dose of radiation, where 10 grays would kill a human and it takes over 1,000 grays to kill a cockroach. This species, in fact, is exemplary in many ways, encompassing also the ability to survive cold, dehydration, vacuum and acid.” (LiveScience, (August 2, 2011) From the BBC (September 22, 2020),we learned that some radiodurans survived three years on the outside of a spacecraft:
News, “Earth’s weirdest life forms show that ET life is possible” at Mind Matters News (June 4, 2022)
Takehome: Many life forms eat and breathe things we used to think were lethal. Life seems to want to come into existence any way it can. Exoplanets may well offer suitable environments.
You may also wish to read: Researcher: Only 4 in 1000s of ET groups are likely malicious. Historically, sci-fi has preferred aliens to be overlords or villains. But a researcher asks us to look at the history of conflict on our own planet… Conflict specialist Alberto Caballero finds that advances in technology correlate with less likelihood of mere aggression — but they don’t rule it out.