This type of discussion is usually in #future-game, where it doesn’t belong.
This thread is about exotic (from our perspective) forms of life, for example, life based on other elements in the Carbon group apart from just Carbon, life that uses Ammonia instead of water, life in environments like deep space, Gas Giants, or asteroid belts, or even things that match the definition of life but are very different from what we consider living things.
It doesn’t have to be any of these, though.
Please try to keep things plausible and logical, I don’t want more space whale or underwater civ discussions.
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a few types of bacteria have been found on the Chernobyl reactor that eat radiation for energy.
and there was another bacteria that eats arsenic and that lives in a lake that has lots of it and has properties similar to bleach.
i find those pretty interesting.
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I agree, they are interesting. Radiosynthesis would definitely be a cool addition to Thrive. I’m not sure how arsenic would fit in though.
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I’m not exactly sure on the specifics, but some scientists have theorized that inside Nebulas, because of how the dust can interact or something life that is made out of dust and rocks and other stuff we consider ‘inorganic material’ could evolve
To be fair, my source is the notoriously unreliable Wikipedia, but usually for more science based stuff like this there is at least some grain of truth there
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Seems a little unlikely in my opinion, but who knows? If life does exist there it would definitely be super interesting.
I also once remember seeing someone say that groups of matter in stars could mostly fit the definition of life, with the exception of having a metabolism.
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all life requires are these 5 things
- a molecule in the carbon group to base itself off of
- an electron donor
- a surface
- a fluid
- space
arsenic is poisonous for the same reason as fluorine and fluorine is able to be used as an electron donor so arsenic is a perfectly reasonable compound to have in your atmosphere if your planet’s life is evolved to deal with temperatures of 614 °C and up or it is dissolved into your planet’s life fluid
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Yup, pretty much. At least, cellular life needs those things.
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As this thread is in Science! , any posts in this must be based on current known science. If there isn’t concrete research backing something or something is not widely accepted by xenobiologists, it won’t be allowed in this thread.
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i’m pretty sure the only thing possibly not accepted by most xenobiologists about
is the 614C part which is the vapor point of arsenic
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Out of curiosity and wanting to track down the source for that page, Could you link it?
I’m pretty sure that Radiosynthesis is currently planned.
Hmm, it seems it was not within Nebulas but ‘suspended in Plasma’
Nonplanetary lifeEdit
Dusty plasma-basedEdit
See also: Dusty plasma
In 2007, Vadim N. Tsytovich and colleagues proposed that lifelike behaviors could be exhibited by dust particles suspended in a plasma, under conditions that might exist in space.[90][91] Computer models showed that, when the dust became charged, the particles could self-organize into microscopic helical structures, and the authors offer “a rough sketch of a possible model of…helical grain structure reproduction”.
Not as clearly stated as I thought I remembered it being, but intriguing nonetheless.
Link to page: Hypothetical Types of Biochemistry
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I want to try to make a scenario for life to evolve on Gas Giants.
I am distinguishing Gas Giants from Ice Giants here, and I’ll be assuming the Gas Giant is in the Goldilocks zone.
Now, to be honest, I do not know enough about biochemistry to show step by step what chemical reactions would form life in a gas giant, but I do know about gas giants themselves. Gas Giants are mostly composed of hydrogen and helium, with hydrogen being an important compound for life to form.
Gas Giants also have clouds of ammonia and water, which are both important for life as well, and there’s plenty of methane too. Of course, those aren’t the only compounds. Gas Giants can have carbon, silicates, oxygen, and various alkali metals. Finally, Gas Giants are very hot, especially at the cores. In our solar system, the Gas Giants have very cool surfaces, but this shouldn’t be as much of a issue because the Gas Giant is in the habitable zone.
This means that in some places, the conditions in the clouds could be very similar to primordial earth, which is when the first life arised. Eventually organisms might appear.
Let me know if there are any issues with this.
I don’t know much about Gas Giants to be perfectly honest - other than their core, are they entirely gaseous, or do they have landmasses like rocky planets?
They’re liquid close to the core, but apart from that, yes they’re completely gaseous.
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gas giants generally have an atmosphere, an ocean, and a metallic core that would instantly become a gas at
1 atmosphere and room temp
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The ocean would become a gas, the core would stay solid since they’re made of metal
the core is made of metal that is a gaseous element when at the pressure of earth’s atmosphere so it would sublimate like dry ice
No, the “oceans” are typically composed of metallic hydrogen. The cores are composed of heavy metals like iron and nickel, just like most other planets.
Please just look it up if you don’t believe me.
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ok correction the cores of large gas giants are composed primarily of metallic hydrogen and a small part is composed of heavier elements and the cores of smaller gas giants are composed of said heavier elements
could carbon based life that uses hydrogen sulfide instead of water exist at -60C where H2S is liquid