Silicon bonds tend to be really stiff and, you know, they don't make those complex configurations the way carbon bonds do. So that's less flexible when life is experimenting on the diversity of what it may need to thrive in an environment. I would add just from an astrophysical point of view, there's like five times as much carbon in the universe as there is silicon. You don't even need to appeal to silicon because carbon is there for you and it's your friend.
Can there be life on planets without magnetic fields? Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice discuss exoplanets, extraterrestrials, and answer extraordinary questions from our fans with astrobiologist, David Grinspoon.
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Photo Credit: NASA/Goddard/Francis Reddy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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