LIFE – CRYSTALLINE

The astronaut kneeling next to you is waving her scanner over you. “It’s a crystalline structure – no live here.” “Are you sure?” asks the other astronaut, “There’s something odd about this one. Its lattice is replicating with slight irregularities.” “Hm,” the first one frowns, “Alright, let’s bring it back to the lab. Maybe it’s alive after all.”

What does it mean for something to be “alive”? At the moment, there’s no clear consensus; scientists propose a variety of definitions. A popular way to think about what counts as ‘life’ is to determine whether it consumes energy, evolves, replicates, and has some sort of interior order. These conditions are true for biological life, but there are some borderline cases where it could be argued that there are non-biological processes that look very much like they are alive.

Crystals, for example, also consume energy (in form of chemicals), grow, and have an interior order. But do they evolve? Strictly speaking – no. But, on your planet, could they respond to their environment by natural selection? Or could we imagine a biological type of crystal? See below for inspiration.