8 Awesome Ways Life Could Be Forming In The Universe

7. Extremophiles

We tend to bang on a lot about the Goldilocks Zone - the region of space that is neither too hot nor too cold for life. We do this because we happen to like a nice, 30°C summer afternoon. We know for a fact that life has flourished in these kinds of environs here on Earth and so we imagine that our best bet for finding alien life is to look for another planet just like it.

There are, however, certain organisms that are made of slightly tougher stuff, and they're called extremophiles. Extremophiles, as the name suggests, love an extreme environment. These creatures can flourish in boiling hot acid, chill at temperatures well below freezing, withstand blasts of ionizing radiation and basically thrive anywhere.

Even more complex organisms such as the Tardigrade, which aren't technically extremophiles as they don't actively exploit extreme environments, can survive at crushing pressures six times greater than at the ocean's deepest point, withstand temperatures from near absolute zero to well above boiling point, take ionizing radiation at doses hundreds of times higher than the lethal dose for a human, and survive the vacuum of outer space.

When you look at it this way, suddenly the frigid oceans of Enceladus look like a pretty cosy home for some alien life.