In the early 1990s, a small team tried to survive in a hermetically sealed space containing replicas of Earth’s ecosystems. Their trials and discoveries still have repercussions today.

Glittering in the vast expanses of the Arizona desert lies a structure that seems torn straight out of the pages of science fiction.

Inside a massive complex of glass pyramids, domes and towers, spread across three acres (1.2 hectares), stands a tropical rainforest topped by a 25ft (7.6m) waterfall, a savannah and a fog desert. They sit alongside a mangrove-studded wetland and an ocean larger than an Olympic swimming pool which includes its own living coral reef.

It’s seemingly a little capsule of Earth, which is why the structure is called Biosphere 2 – named after our own planet, Biosphere 1.