Product Code Database
The biosphere (), also called the ecosphere (), is the worldwide sum of all . It can also be termed the zone of life on the Earth. The biosphere (which is technically a spherical shell) is virtually a closed system with regard to matter, "Biosphere" in The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. (2004) Columbia University Press. with minimal inputs and outputs. Regarding energy, it is an open system, with photosynthesis capturing solar energy at a rate of around 100 Watt. By the most general Geophysiology definition, the biosphere is the global ecology system integrating all living beings and their relationships, including their interaction with the elements of the lithosphere, cryosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere. The biosphere is postulated to have evolved, beginning with a process of biopoiesis (life created naturally from matter, such as simple organic compounds) or biogenesis (life created from living matter), at least some 3.5 billion years ago.
In a general sense, biospheres are any closed, self-regulating systems containing ecosystems. This includes artificial biospheres such as and , and potentially Astrobiology.
While the concept has a geological origin, it is an indication of the effect of both Charles Darwin and Matthew F. Maury on the Earth sciences. The biosphere's ecological context comes from the 1920s (see Vladimir I. Vernadsky), preceding the 1935 introduction of the term "ecosystem" by Sir Arthur Tansley (see ecology history). Vernadsky defined ecology as the science of the biosphere. It is an interdisciplinary concept for integrating astronomy, geophysics, meteorology, biogeography, evolution, geology, geochemistry, hydrology and, generally speaking, all life and Earth sciences.
The Second International Conference on Closed Life Systems defined biospherics as the science and technology of analogs and models of Earth's biosphere; i.e., artificial Earth-like biospheres. Others may include the creation of artificial non-Earth biospheres—for example, human-centered biospheres or a native Mars biosphere—as part of the topic of biospherics. (2025). 9781588291660 ISBN 9781588291660
There are more extreme examples for life on the planet: Rüppell's vulture has been found at of ; bar-headed goose migrate at altitudes of at least ; live at elevations as high as above sea level; live up to . Herbivorous animals at these elevations depend on lichens, grasses, and herbs.
Life forms live in every part of the Earth's biosphere, including soil, , endolith at least deep underground, and at least high in the atmosphere. Marine life under many forms has been found in the deepest reaches of the world ocean while much of the deep sea remains to be explored.[2]
Under certain test conditions, microorganisms have been observed to survive the vacuum of outer space. The total amount of soil and subsurface bacterial carbon is estimated as 5 × 1017 g. The mass of prokaryote microorganisms—which includes bacteria and archaea, but not the nucleated eukaryote microorganisms—may be as much as 0.8 trillion tons of carbon (of the total biosphere mass, estimated at between 1 and 4 trillion tons). Piezophile marine microbes have been found at more than a depth of in the Mariana Trench, the deepest spot in the Earth's oceans. In fact, single-celled life forms have been found in the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, by the Challenger Deep, at depths of . Other researchers reported related studies that microorganisms thrive inside rocks up to below the sea floor under of ocean off the coast of the northwestern United States, as well as beneath the seabed off Japan. Culturable thermophilic microbes have been extracted from cores drilled more than into the Earth's crust in Sweden, from rocks between . Temperature increases with increasing depth into the Earth's crust. The rate at which the temperature increases depends on many factors, including the type of crust (continental vs. oceanic), rock type, geographic location, etc. The greatest known temperature at which microbial life can exist is ( Methanopyrus kandleri Strain 116). It is likely that the limit of life in the "deep biosphere" is defined by temperature rather than absolute depth. On 20 August 2014, scientists confirmed the existence of microorganisms living below the ice of Antarctica.
Earth's biosphere is divided into several , inhabited by fairly similar flora and fauna. On land, biomes are separated primarily by latitude. Terrestrial biomes lying within the Arctic Circle and are relatively barren of plant and animal life. In contrast, most of the more populous biomes lie near the equator.
Based on observations by the Kepler Space Telescope team, it has been calculated that provided the probability of abiogenesis is higher than 1 to 1000, the closest alien biosphere should be within 100 light-years from the Earth.Amri Wandel, On the abundance of extraterrestrial life after the Kepler mission
It is also possible that artificial biospheres will be created in the future, for example with the terraforming of Mars. (2025). 9781451608113, Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9781451608113
|
|
