<Tr> <Th_colspan="2"> Website </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> biosphere2.org </Td> </Tr> <P> Biosphere 2 is an American Earth system science research facility located in Oracle, Arizona . It has been owned by the University of Arizona since 2011 . Its mission is to serve as a center for research, outreach, teaching, and lifelong learning about Earth, its living systems, and its place in the universe . It is a 3.14 - acre (1.27 - hectare) structure originally built to be an artificial, materially closed ecological system, or vivarium . It remains the largest closed system ever created . </P> <P> Biosphere 2 was originally meant to demonstrate the viability of closed ecological systems to support and maintain human life in outer space . It was designed to explore the web of interactions within life systems in a structure with different areas based on various biological biomes . In addition to the several biomes and living quarters for people, there was an agricultural area and work space to study the interactions between humans, farming, technology and the rest of nature as a new kind of laboratory for the study of the global ecology . Its mission was a two - year closure experiment with a crew of eight humans ("biospherians"). Long - term it was seen as a precursor to gain knowledge about the use of closed biospheres in space colonization . As an experimental ecological facility it allowed the study and manipulation of a mini biospheric system without harming Earth's biosphere . Its seven biome areas were a 1,900 - square - meter (20,000 sq ft) rainforest, an 850 - square - meter (9,100 sq ft) ocean with a coral reef, a 450 - square - meter (4,800 sq ft) mangrove wetlands, a 1,300 - square - metre (14,000 sq ft) savannah grassland, a 1,400 - square - meter (15,000 sq ft) fog desert, and two anthropogenic biomes: a 2,500 - square - meter (27,000 sq ft) agricultural system and a human habitat with living spaces, laboratories and workshops . Below ground was an extensive part of the technical infrastructure . Heating and cooling water circulated through independent piping systems and passive solar input through the glass space frame panels covering most of the facility, and electrical power was supplied into Biosphere 2 from an onsite natural gas energy center . </P>

Where did they build the structure used in biosphere 2