> There’s scarcely any corner of Earth in which life hasn’t gained a foothold[..]
About that, not that long ago I was entertaining the idea of what environments can be completely devoid of life. I was thinking about examples like a volcano Cauldron, a nuclear reactor or the insides of a particle accelerator.
I assume the caldera is hotter than what this little dude can take https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanopyrus
If you expand the bounds beyond Earth there are a lot of environments completely devoid of life…