Not really. What you are describing might happen on a bad episode of Star Trek TNG (Q changes the gravitational constant, for example), but in reality stuff that happens on a planet orbiting a distant star are not going to be all that different than what happens here on Earth. Chemical bonds work the same way in Sunnyvale as they do in the Oort Cloud or in a galaxy billions of light years away. We know this by studying the spectra of the light coming from these places.
At the chemical level, I do not anticipate that extraterrestrial life would be very different than that found here. Water is a terrific solvent and is liquid at a wide range of temperature. Unlike methane and ammonia, its molecules are dipoles (one end is more positive and the other more negative), which makes it easy for it to form hydrogen bonds and a strong surface tension at the surface.
Carbon and Oxygen are both fairly abundant. They are formed during the carbon-cycle of aging stars (3 He -> C, 4 He -> O). I have read SF stories that tell of creatures that breathe Florine or are Silicon-based, but these are pretty far-fetched. Florine is a lot rarer than Oxygen, and though it is more electro-negative than O, because of this it is likely to stay locked up in rocks than remain in the atmosphere. Silicon has the same number of valence electrons as Carbon does, but the bonds that it forms are at a higher energy state (n=3, vs. n=2 for C). This means that it is hard for Si to form double or triple covalent bonds; this is something C can do very easily. For a more detailed discussion on this subject, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemis...
At the chemical level, I do not anticipate that extraterrestrial life would be very different than that found here. Water is a terrific solvent and is liquid at a wide range of temperature. Unlike methane and ammonia, its molecules are dipoles (one end is more positive and the other more negative), which makes it easy for it to form hydrogen bonds and a strong surface tension at the surface.
Carbon and Oxygen are both fairly abundant. They are formed during the carbon-cycle of aging stars (3 He -> C, 4 He -> O). I have read SF stories that tell of creatures that breathe Florine or are Silicon-based, but these are pretty far-fetched. Florine is a lot rarer than Oxygen, and though it is more electro-negative than O, because of this it is likely to stay locked up in rocks than remain in the atmosphere. Silicon has the same number of valence electrons as Carbon does, but the bonds that it forms are at a higher energy state (n=3, vs. n=2 for C). This means that it is hard for Si to form double or triple covalent bonds; this is something C can do very easily. For a more detailed discussion on this subject, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemis...