Alien Imagination

All life on Earth requires carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus as well as numerous other elements in smaller amounts, notably minerals; it also requires water as the solvent in which biochemical reactions take place. Sufficient quantities of carbon and the other major life-forming elements, along with water, may enable the formation of living organisms on other planets with a chemical make-up and average temperature similar to that of Earth. Because Earth and other planets are made up of "stardust", i.e. relatively abundant chemical elements formed from stars which have ended their lives as supernovae, it is very probable that other planets may have been formed by elements of a similar composition to the Earth's. The combination of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen in the chemical form of carbohydrates (e.g. sugar) can be a source of chemical energy on which life depends, and can also provide structural elements for life (such as ribose, in the molecules DNA and RNA, and cellulose in plants). Plants derive energy through the conversion of light energy into chemical energy via photosynthesis. Life, as currently recognized, requires carbon in both reduced (methane derivatives) and partially-oxidized (carbon oxides) states. It also appears to require nitrogen as a reduced ammonia derivative in all proteins, sulfur as a derivative of hydrogen sulfide in some necessary proteins, and phosphorus oxidized to phosphates in genetic material and in energy transfer. Adequate water as a solvent supplies adequate oxygen as constituents of biochemical substances.
Pure water is useful because it has a neutral pH due to its continued dissociation between hydroxide and hydronium ions. As a result, it can dissolve both positive metallic ions and negative non-metallic ions with equal ability. Furthermore, the fact that organic molecules can be either hydrophobic (repelled by water) or hydrophilic (soluble in water) creates the ability of organic compounds to orient themselves to form water-enclosing membranes. The fact that solid water (ice) is less dense than liquid water (within specific temperature ranges) also means that ice floats, thereby preventing Earth's oceans from slowly freezing. Without this quality, the oceans could have frozen solid during the Snowball Earth episodes. Additionally, the hydrogen bonds between water molecules give it an ability to store energy with evaporation, which upon condensation is released. This helps to moderate the climate, cooling the tropics and warming the poles, helping to maintain the thermodynamic stability needed for life.
Carbon is fundamental to terrestrial life for its immense flexibility in creating covalent chemical bonds with a variety of non-metallic elements, principally nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen. Carbon dioxide and water together enable the storage of solar energy in sugars, such as glucose. The oxidation of glucose releases biochemical energy needed to fuel all other biochemical reactions.
The ability to form organic acids (–COOH) and amine bases (–NH2) gives rise to the possibility of neutralization dehydrating reactions to build long polymer peptides and catalytic proteins from monomer amino acids, and with phosphates to build not only DNA (the information-storing molecule of inheritance), but also ATP (the principal energy "currency" of cellular life).