I think the life question may be what they are trying to get at, but if they are, they're running the story on cognitive autopilot. Nobody of any scientific sig

I think the life question may be what they are trying to get at, but if they are, they're running the story on cognitive autopilot. Nobody of any scientific significance believes, or as far as I can see as someone interested in this topic, ever has believed that the limit on life elsewhere is that only Earth had the raw elements necessary for life. Nobody doubts that carbon atoms exist elsewhere in the universe, and in quantity. It's sort of like the stories about how there are planets around other stars, therefore, handwave handwave something about life give us more money. Nobody (of scientific relevance) has ever seriously claimed that the only planets in the universe are the ones we can see in our solar system. There were some debates about how many there may be, but nobody ever proposed that they were somehow rare in absolute terms. Debates about the natures of those planets aplenty, certainly, but not their existence.