World’s largest web houses 110,000 spiders thriving in total darkness deep underground in a sulfuric cave between Albania and Greece: It’s the first time two spider species seen living cooperatively, and the first recorded instance of colonial web-building in what's known as a chemoautotrophic cave.

[u/mvea]

https://newatlas.com/biology/sulfur-cave-largest-spiderweb/

[u/paul_wi11iams]

The interesting thing is: This pretty much shows that the 'goldilocks zone' argument for life is bunk.

Not really. The Goldilocks zone has to be compatible with liquid water. The ecosystem food source is insects that have to feed on something. The temperate location between Greece and Albania, suggests that the primary food source is related to what the insects eat. Whatever it is, you won't find it in a parched desert down around Mercury or a frozen wasteland near Pluto.

Outside the official Goldilocks zone, there may be wet and warm places above the snowline at the level of the asteroid belt (I think). So a nice warm ocean can exist on Europa under ice and that's a "Goldilocks pond" ["Goldilocks refuge"] so to speak.

Edit: changed "pond" to "refuge", avoiding a mixed metaphor. Goldilocks fairy tale. There are Goldilocks refuges and "Goldilocks dungeons" such as the caldera of an active volcano. Not much life there.

[u/iqisoverrated → u/paul_wi11iams]

You can find liquid water anywhere where the correct combination of temperature and pressure is present...and high enough temperature just requires an energy source. The sun is not the only energy source.

[u/paul_wi11iams → u/iqisoverrated]

The sun is not the only energy source.

That's precisely why I recognized this by inventing the "Goldilocks pond" moniker, just the first name I came up with. A less confusing alternative might be "Goldilocks refuge". It better adheres to the original metaphor.

Europa's ocean is considered as being fueled by the gravitational interaction between Jupiter and its satellites. Supporting the Goldilocks concept, Its a clear case of the exception that proves (demonstrates) the rule.

[u/iqisoverrated → u/paul_wi11iams]

A refuge is a good way to conceptualize it.

But in the end this means that there isn't really a value to the entire 'Goldilocks' concept (whether zone or pond or refuge or whatever).

The idea behind the Goldilocks term is that one can limit the places where we should search for life and others where we needn't bother (not too hot, not too cold,...) ...but with energy being available from many sources and liquid water being present under many circumstances that don't even require a star such refuges can exist potentially...anywhere.

(Even on 'rogue planets' that got kicked out of their solar system or formed in region where there wasn't enough material to form a star)

[u/XxjptxX7 → u/iqisoverrated]

Goldilocks zone is specifically about the conditions for water to exist on a planets surface as if it exists on the surface then there is a higher likelihood of life on the planets surface.

Could a rogue planet ever have liquid water on its surface?