We often imagine life as something soft, wet, and built of carbon, cells wrapped in membranes,

busy at the business of chemistry, but fiction often tempts us toward stradier shores,

shimmering beings of living fire, creatures woven from lightning, sentient nebulae

drifting between the stars, or entities so energetic, they barely have a physical form at all.

As children, we picture beings made of fire stocking volcanic walls, or luminous spirits dancing

inside suns. As adults, well, many of us still picture it, and maybe we should.

Because when we talk about life in the universe, or even beyond, we're talking about

possibilities, and fire and lightning are nothing if not energetic possibilities waiting

to happen.

Since they were asking a question as old as science fiction itself, but now grounded in serious

discussion.

Could plasma-based life forms exist?

Could creatures of fire and lightning be real? Or at

possible? We'll look at plasma life in stars, in giant storms, in space, in nebulae, or on

exotic planets. We'll explore the physics and the challenges, we'll examine how evolution

might guide such organisms, and we'll take a friendly jab at the grand old

tropes of sci-fi, pure energy beans, who glow impressively while lecturing us about our primitive

carbon forms. They're probably nonsense, but maybe not entirely. So, grab a drink and a snack in your

official SFIA mug if you have one, zap those like, subscribe, and notification buttons, and let's spark up to his discussion on Plasma Life.

What is Plasma Life really?

Saying creatures of pure energy is a bit vague.

After all Einstein showed us, matter is just one type of energy.

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