Billions of years ago, life may have gotten started at hydrothermal vents, cracks in the sea floor where hot fluids from inside our planet mix with colder ocean water. Laurie Barge, an astrobiologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, studies how plant-looking mineral structures called chimneys grow from chemicals found at the deepest depths of the ocean. In her lab she has glass vials and bulbs full of different chemical mixtures that simulate undersea conditions. Through careful mixing, scientists can even form amino acids, which are essential building blocks of life. Could similar processes happen in oceans under the ice shells of moons farther away in our solar system, like Europa and Enceladus?

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