Our May meeting went well.  Dr. Greg Stanley presented a talk entitled “Biosphere 2 and Closed Ecological Systems”

A biosphere is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems.  It is materially closed but open for energy and information.  The word “biosphere” was coined by geologist Eduard Suess in 1875 (no relation to Dr. Suess 🙂 ).  The word meant “geology of the place that life dwells”.  The Geochemist Vladimir Vernadsky developed the concept further in his 1926 book entitled “The Biosphere”.  In it, he argues that life is a geological force.

How small can a biosphere be?  Biosphere 1 is the earth.  Biosphere 2 was created to help answer the question if it is possible to create a miniature version.  This is important because when we travel out into space, we will need to bring our Biosphere with us.

We had 10 people attend the meeting.

We finished up by playing Space Exploration Jeopardy.

We look forward to seeing you at our June 2nd meeting.