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15 How Aliens Work 15 How Aliens Work How Aliens Work chemicals could be solvents as well, such as energy from its surroundings, extract the energy How Aliens Work ammonia, methane, hydrogen sulfide or and eliminate wastes. hydrogen fluoride. - The alien would have senses (such as Continued from Page 14 Continued from Page 14 Temperature - Alien life may require sight, sound, touch) to obtain information from temperatures at which its solvent can remain the environment and respond to stimuli (while How can these animals survive so far liquid. we use vision as our primary sense, this may not from the sunlight, under these extreme Pressure - Alien life may require be true of aliens). They would also have some conditions? In the water, scientists found environmental pressures (and temperatures) that type of brain or nervous system to process species of bacteria that split hydrogen sulfide allow solvents to exist in three states of matter information. from the water to get energy to make organic (solid, liquid, gas). - The alien would have some means of compounds (chemosynthesis). The tubeworms Energy source - Living things require reproduction, either sexual or asexual have bacteria in their tissues that help them energy to remain organized. This energy may derive energy from the water. The clams feed on come from a star or from chemical or Alien organisms would probably have the bacteria, and the crabs feed on the geothermal energy (as in hydrothermal vents similar ecological structures to life on Earth. tubeworms. and hot springs). On any alien world, there - Population sizes would be limited The discovery of hydrothermal-vent would have to be some source of energy to based on the predominance of food, predators, communities showed that it is possible for life sustain life. disease and other environmental factors. to evolve in places without light from the sun, Complex molecules - Living things on - Alien life forms would exist in food and in other worlds without sufficient light from Earth are organized and made of complex, chains and food webs in their native the parent star. In view of the discovery of carbon-based molecules that carry out environment, like life on Earth. Producers will hydrothermal vents, it may be possible that life biochemical functions. Carbon is a versatile make food, consumers will eat producers and/or exists on Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter, which atom that can form bonds with up to four other other consumers and decomposers will recycle scientists believe has a water ocean beneath its atoms, in many shapes, to make molecules. atoms and molecules from dead organisms back icy crust. Although not as versatile as carbon, silicon can into the environment. also form up to four bonds with other atoms and - Alien life forms will be integrated with has been proposed as a basis for molecules of their habitats and ecosystems, like life on Earth. alien life (silicon-carbon hybrid molecules have As you can see, life of any kind is intimately also been proposed). It is likely that alien life tied to its environment, so the characteristics of forms would have some type of complex the planet would be extremely important in molecule to carry out similar functions. determining the characteristics of the life form. Informational molecule - In Earth Speculation: What Might Aliens organisms, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a Speculation: What Might Aliens complex molecule that carries genetic Be Like? Be Like? information and directs the formation of other molecules in order for life to reproduce and With these ground rules in mind, and function. Because a characteristic of life is that since no extraterrestrial life forms have been it reproduces, it seems likely that alien life conclusively discovered, alien physiology lies forms would also have some type of in the realm of our imagination. Science-fiction informational molecule. authors, especially the 'hard" ones who try to adhere strictly to real science, have been doing Alien beings that are larger than this for years. They first design or build a world, microbes would have some equivalent of cells. Tubeworms around a hydrothermal vent As an organism gets larger, its internal volume carefully working out its physical, astronomical (cubic function) grows faster than its surface and ecological characteristics. Next, they work Life has been found in other extreme area (square function). This places a limit on the out what type of aliens could exist in that world. environments as well. Scientists discovered organism's size, because substances from the An example of one such world-building microcolonies of lichens called cryptoendoliths outside of the organism must pass into and exercise can be found at the Epona Project, in rock samples of the Antarctic desert, where throughout the organism by diffusion, which where several science-fiction writers came temperatures often drop to 100 degrees below depends upon large surface areas, short together to create a world called Epona, zero and there is little or no liquid water. In distances and differences in concentrations. As complete with planetary, geological and contrast, thermophilic (heat-loving) bacteria an organism grows larger, the distance to its ecological data. One artist, Steven Hanly, have been found in hot springs where center increases and diffusion gets slower. To created Epona creatures. temperatures exceed the boiling point of water. maintain workable diffusion distances, an For his novel "Mission of Gravity," Hal If life can evolve in extreme organism must have many small cells instead of Clement created a world called Mesklin that environments on Earth, it seems possible that one large cell. So, an alien would be multi- circles a double star. Mesklin rotates once every life may exist in the extreme environments of celled if it is larger than a microbe. (We would eighteen minutes and has a flattened shape other worlds such as Mars. not expect to find a light-years wide, single- caused by its rotation. The gravity of Mesklin celled organism like that portrayed in the ranges from three times Earth's gravity, at the Some Ground Rules for Alien life Some Ground Rules for Alien life original Star Trek episode "The Immunity equator, to seven hundred times at the poles. Mesklin has a hydrogen atmosphere and Syndrome.") methane oceans. Mesklinites, one of the planet's Using what we have learned from life on Alien life would evolve and adapt to its life forms, are small, centipede-like creatures Earth, what can we say about alien life? While surroundings by the theory of evolution as made of an insect skeletal protein called chitin. it would probably be vastly different from life previously explained. They have 18 pairs of legs that end in sucker- on Earth, alien life would probably adhere to The physiological make-up of a multi- like feet, forward pinchers for grasping, a strong certain universal guidelines, as the widely celled alien would be most suited to its circulatory system and absorb hydrogen right varying life on Earth does. These guidelines or environment. Organ systems would be adapted through their shells. They are immensely strong ground rules include the following: to environmental conditions such as -- a result of living on a high-gravity world, yet Alien life would be governed by laws of temperature, moisture and gravity. they have a fear of being picked up because a physics and chemistry. - The alien would have some way of fall from a small height could be fatal on such Alien life would be based on some type bringing solids, liquids and gases inside its high gravity. (See "Barlowe's Guide to of chemistry (eliminating the sci-fi concept of body, distributing them to every cell and Extraterrestrials" and "The Science of Aliens" pure-energy beings). removing waste products (equivalents of heart , for descriptions of Mesklinites and other alien Solvent - On Earth, the solvent for all of blood vessels and kidneys, for instance). life.) our biochemicals is liquid water. Other - The alien would be able to take in Continued on Page 16