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.
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.
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?
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.
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
there are sulfur respiring bacteria on earth and photosynthesis does not use the oxygen in water so photosynthesizers would still make glucose if they were carbon based and as long as there were lipids and RNA being made on that planet(most likely in the hydrothermal vents where the H2S can be a liquid and much warmer) life could still form and all it would take is one blob to form and in a few million years the planet would have prokaryotes like the ones before eukaryotes existed but much different and H2S is a polar molecule
if that is not what you meant then please say what you meant
Oxygen is a part of nearly every biological molecule. Though you do make a pretty good point, I agree that if they still have a source of oxygen (maybe metal oxides) that life could form.
Source? That seems quite implausible as being on a single power line means current is not running through you at all (which is why birds are safe sitting on power lines).
i’m pretty sure that they are actually talking about power line bacteria which are bacteria that conduct electricity over a long distance. they do not actually live on power lines
It’s a bit suspicious that that Wikipedia page lists just two news articles as sources and no scientific papers at all.
Also it sounds like it is a variant of iron eating " Instead, electric bacteria “breathe” metals instead of oxygen, which effectively results in both an intake of and excretion of electrical charges" at least kind of.
That just basically says that the bacteria due to lack of oxygen can’t use oxygen byproducts to emit their “respiration” instead they eject small electric charges.
I fail to see how this is relevant for generating large electric currents that could zap other things under water or how the emitted charges (which presumably are like waste to the bacteria) could get used / amplified by other bacteria.
with large amounts of energy generated through the electrotrophic organelles you could have wires connecting several cells to generate as much electricity as an electric eel with fewer cells dedicated to the task and likely opening up several more playstyles (examples include: eating gold and using your waste electricity to attack predators, eating silver and using the electricity from it to attack your prey that you eat for it’s nutrients and not it’s energy, etc)