Aliens could be common on free-floating ‘rogue planets’ without suns

Here's an interesting proposition: that life may be more common underground than we usually think, and that includes all those rogue planets floating out there.


Dark life: Aliens could be common on free-floating ‘rogue planets’ without suns, scientist says

‘Rogue planets’, which orbit galaxies without a parent sun, could harbour life beneath their surface, a scientist claims - and extraterrestrial lifeforms could be more common than we have thought.

The ‘free floating’ planets, not bound to any star, are common in our galaxy - with one study suggesting that there are 100,000 times as many ‘rogue’ planets in the Milky Way than the galaxy’s 300 billion stars.

“You don't necessarily need a sun for the maintenance of life. Life can survive on a rogue planet if it is far enough below the surface and the planet is generating enough heat,” says Sean McMahon of the University of Aberdeen.

“Life doesn't need oxygen gas, sunlight or organic food. It can survive at high temperatures and pressures, miles below the Earth's surface, feeding off chemical reactions between water, minerals and carbon dioxide. That's probably a common environment elsewhere.”

Life might be more common in the universe beneath the surface of planets than on the surface, the researcher says - and could even still lurk beneath the surface on Mars.

I mentioned before on ATS that, given the possibility of life in Europa's underground ocean (which is kept warm and liquid by Jupiter's tidal forces), alien life doesn't have to be close to its sun for warmth; that warmth may be provided by the host gas giant squeezing and stretching the moon through tidal forces. The article linked above extends this possibility to rogue planets, which hasn't ocurred to me before. I always thought of rogue planets as very cold. But if it's a large rocky planet (a super-Earth), it should be able to retain its internal heat for billions of years, with new heat produced through nuclear decay.

An exciting possibility, what do you think?

reply to post by wildespace


Just as likely then that our planet may also contain life down that deep underground?

SnF

What about life just drifiing in space? It would be way more dispersable than being confined to one single planet - its not like planets last forever, but space, space last alot longer than particular solar systems

LightAssassin
reply to post by wildespace

 

Just as likely then that our planet may also contain life down that deep underground?

Life has been found several miles (or kilometers) deep inside Earth.
news.nationalgeographic.co.uk...
earthsky.org...
Although it seems these forms of life depend on the Earth's ocean above them, a rogue planet could have an underground ocean playing the same role.

gardener
What about life just drifiing in space? It would be way more dispersable than being confined to one single planet - its not like planets last forever, but space, space last alot longer than particular solar systems

How can a lifeform survive in vacuum and without any kind of source of energy or heat?

LightAssassin
reply to post by wildespace

 

Just as likely then that our planet may also contain life down that deep underground?

Yes, our planet does contain life deep underground in the form of microbes, bacteria etc.

Thats what these articles are talking about, not tool wielding large life.

For that, having a star still seems to be the best bet.

The reason why this story is important is because there are suspected to be many rogue planets out there, we've detected some and it may be easier in the near term to detect biosignatures (signs of life in their atmospheres) on rogue planets than on planets around stars (because a star's light swamps out the reflected light of a planet).

It would kind of make sense that some of these planets could have some sort of life forms on them.

Here on earth organisms need carbon, along with our rich nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere. Not to mention the abundance of water.

But, we really aren't too sure if these things are completely necessary elsewhere. I personally think that life may emerge under different conditions. As long as these conditions are not too extreme.


And as far as rogue planets having life on them, I could agree to the possibility. Usually planets need to generate motion and heat inside of it self in order to create a magnetic field, which is what creates an atmosphere, and protects it from harmful radiation and any other debris that may come along. This is something that a lot of scientists have concluded with our own planet. It's believed that our planet has a metallic core, most likely iron or an element similar. This iron core would be molten, and it basically churns around, and this creates our magnetic field. And it generally makes our planet warmer, better suiting life.

Since a rogue planet wouldn't have a star, it would be unlikely life would emerge on the surface. It would be far to cold. If there would be water, it would surely be frozen. But, if you make your way to the core, the planets internal heat may be able to have a good enough temperature. And perhaps things such as water may be able to be in liquid form. That is to say that this planet would be a rocky planet. If it were a gas planet, I don't believe life could really happen. Since a gas planet is gas of course. These planets usually have some crazy things happening inside of them. And all of that gas more towards the inside would have extreme amounts of pressure do to the planets own gravity.

So to me, I think it would be a pretty good possibility. It's just to bad we don't have the capability to really go out and explore these things really well yet. Hopefully one day we may be able to.

gardener
SnF

What about life just drifiing in space? It would be way more dispersable than being confined to one single planet - its not like planets last forever, but space, space last alot longer than particular solar systems

All life, no matter where we look, needs some form of liquid water. I can imagine some form of bacteria that could live in an iceball/comet that turned chemical energy into heat to melt the ice and drink the water.

But free floating spores? not likely.

I can provide a nice story (Science-Fiction, of course) dealing with the Earth, being catapulted out off the solar system by a rogue star:

A Pail of Air (on Baenebooks, by Fritz Leiber).

JadeStar

All life, no matter where we look, needs some form of liquid water. I can imagine some form of bacteria that could live in an iceball/comet that turned chemical energy into heat to melt the ice and drink the water.

But free floating spores? not likely.

Wait wait!

There is indeed free-floating water in space!

Astronomers find oldest most massive resevoir of water in the Universe

Astronomers have discovered the largest and oldest mass of water ever detected in the universe — a gigantic, 12-billion-year-old cloud harboring 140 trillion times more water than all of Earth's oceans combined.

The cloud of water vapor surrounds a supermassive black hole called a quasar located 12 billion light-years from Earth. The discovery shows that water has been prevalent in the universe for nearly its entire existence, researchers said.

Granted, that's 12 Billion years ago as light travels, and in greatest likelihood was slurped up by that Black Hole long ago, but, it certainly serves as example of some of the stranger and spookier possibilities our wonderful universe may have in store for presentation to ponder.

For a fun exercise of imagination in odd, I recommend a read of Integral Trees, by Larry Niven where a gas torus orbits a Neutron star where the gas is breathable, and Humans have colonized it to live in a near zero-G microgravity environment, making their homes on some of the gigantic plant life that's developed free-floating in this gas torus.

Granted, that's imagination, and we've no direct observations of anything such, but, it's not outside the constraints of any of our current models.

wildespace

gardener
What about life just drifiing in space? It would be way more dispersable than being confined to one single planet - its not like planets last forever, but space, space last alot longer than particular solar systems

How can a lifeform survive in vacuum and without any kind of source of energy or heat?

And while exposed freely to the radiation of space without protection. Especially while their internal error-correcting machinery would have to come to a halt for lack of resources available in that environment.

But then again a life form could have evolved some kind of shielding. If they can survive the radiation, then it would be mostly a matter of going into some kind of hibernation. I know that's not the correct word. What do you call it when life forms "go to sleep" for dozens or hundreds of years only to wake up again when they thaw out? Would the radioactive decay going on inside their own bodies be enough to extinguish their life during the millions of years they would drift about in empty space? What about spontaneous chemical decomposition--does that happen?

AliceBleachWhite
Wait wait!

There is indeed free-floating water in space!

But only in the form of individual H2O molecules, or at best small grains of ice. There aren't any free-floating blobs of liquid water in space! Water needs a certain amount of pressure and warmth to stay liquid.

When astronomers talk about detecting water in deep space (such as in nebulae), they mean H2O molecules.

AliceBleachWhite

JadeStar

All life, no matter where we look, needs some form of liquid water. I can imagine some form of bacteria that could live in an iceball/comet that turned chemical energy into heat to melt the ice and drink the water.

But free floating spores? not likely.

Wait wait!

There is indeed free-floating water in space!

Astronomers find oldest most massive resevoir of water in the Universe

Astronomers have discovered the largest and oldest mass of water ever detected in the universe — a gigantic, 12-billion-year-old cloud harboring 140 trillion times more water than all of Earth's oceans combined.

The cloud of water vapor surrounds a supermassive black hole called a quasar located 12 billion light-years from Earth. The discovery shows that water has been prevalent in the universe for nearly its entire existence, researchers said.

Granted, that's 12 Billion years ago as light travels, and in greatest likelihood was slurped up by that Black Hole long ago, but, it certainly serves as example of some of the stranger and spookier possibilities our wonderful universe may have in store for presentation to ponder.

So true Alice!

Molecular clouds are cool places. And I can think of some weird form of life that could exist within one with water vapor but it would be very unlikely given what we know of what biology needs. I was thinking more about spores in free space far from any source of heat or water when I wrote that it would be unlikely to find life on its own free floating in space.

For a fun exercise of imagination in odd, I recommend a read of Integral Trees, by Larry Niven where a gas torus orbits a Neutron star where the gas is breathable, and Humans have colonized it to live in a near zero-G microgravity environment, making their homes on some of the gigantic plant life that's developed free-floating in this gas torus.

Granted, that's imagination, and we've no direct observations of anything such, but, it's not outside the constraints of any of our current models.

OMG I remember reading that when I was in middle school. I loved that story! Thanks for reminding me of it. And I agree that mother nature has a better imagination than all of us so it's probably wise not to rule very weird life out.

“You don't necessarily need a sun for the maintenance of life. Life can survive on a rogue planet if it is far enough below the surface and the planet is generating enough heat,” says Sean McMahon of the University of Aberdeen.

FINALLY somebody with a bit of practical sense.

I once suggested to some family members that life can exist on planets which don't have a sun, and they called me crazy.

Life at the bottom of the deepest parts of the ocean survive on a mineral based diet which is feed by the ocean vents. Volcanic Vents.

While life which higher up in the ocean have a vitamin based diet, which is powered by sunlight.

If the sun died, life above would die, the oceans would freeze, but microscopic life closest to the vents would survive.

Their food source is not dependent upon the solar life cycle, but on the micro-life-cycle provided by the volcanic core.

* * * * *

Sometimes the ego and arrogance of mankind thinking we are special, and the soup of life can only be created with solar atomic assistance, needs to step back and consider other possibilities. Sub-terrainian volcanoes can power all the processes without the assistance of a sun.

Who says all aliens need to come from a planet.. They could crawl out of black holes for all humans know

reply to post by wildespace


Life...finds a way.

What interests me is that theses rogue planets ejected from their host star system could settle in orbit around another star. And if one of these rogue planets is a frozen water world like Europa, then in billions of years these planets could host intelligent aquatic life such as dolphins.

The odds of that happening might be a trillion to one, but as Han Solo once said "Never tell me the odds!"

Energy is some what circular, it gets transmitted, converted by life forms like us. Plants, animals, its all energy from the sun that flows around us even out fossil fuels were created by the sun at one point.

with no sun theres no free energy to absorb and convert so what exactly would a subterranean alien life form use to sustain itself?