Eutectic Iron Life

I was reading about the rogue planet PSO J318.5-22 which is thought to have molten iron rain and things like that, and I vaguely remembered from uni that almost all iron mixtures have a slushy eutectic phase.

So I got to thinking, could you have life based on the impurities and crystal structures in that phase, with iron as the solvent? Different crystal systems can seed each other and self-replicate that way, different metals and metal complexes have various catalytic properties, and so on.

I don't plan on mapping out the details of that kind of biology, just want an opinion on whether or not it's vaguely plausible.

posted over 8 years ago

Tom‭

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