Life on Pluto (No, I'm not an imbecile)

[spudman2]

Imagine if, during its' flyby in 2015, New Horizons returned evidence of life? How would the life be detected? What might it look like? What would its' lifecycle or metabolism be like?

(I understand that there's almost a 100% chance of nothing like this happening, but it sounds like a fun thought experiment)

 

[Unstung]

Pluto's interior could potentially be kept warm by the radioactive decay of potassium since the formation of the dwarf planet. This would lead to a present underground ocean like what is thought to be underneath the surface of many moons in the outer solar system. Unfortunately, Wikipedia says Charon has a 0.00 eccentricity so that rules out tidal heating. Surface features on Pluto captured by New Horizons could reveal a potential underground ocean. But the spacecraft cannot determine what exactly is underneath the surface, and definitely not life. New Horizons has instruments to study Pluto's tenuous atmosphere, so it might be able to detect organic compounds, but not very complex molecules that can signify life.

Life on the surface appears to be impossible. Even so, Triton, Neptune's largest moon and a similar type of object to Pluto, exhibited cryovolcanism and a thin atmosphere discovered by Voyager 2. That sort of environment may be able to create and support some type of simple life, but these flyby spacecraft cannot detect it.


I think this thread fits better in "Astronomy & the Night Sky".

 

[Artlav]

Life...

What can be liquid there?
30-40K temperature, give or take some.

Liquid Helium: 0.956K-4.22K
Liquid Hydrogen: 14K-20.2K
Liquid Neon: 24.5K-27K

Helium and Neon are noble elements, not too reactive. Helium would also boil too easily.

So, Hydrogen based life.
Amoebas, sitting in the shadows or on the dark side.
Insect-like crawlers running around.
Crystalline tree-like growths.
Very slow, since energy is a premium, and heat is deadly.

Pluto is unlikely to have any big liquid pools, of any element, so pretty arid climate.
Maybe oceans of liquid neon/hydrogen under nitrogen ice, with some sort of fish-like life.

What signs?
Spectral signatures of complex hydrogenorganic compounds, presence of compounds not in chemical equilibrium (like free oxygen on Earth, spectroscopically detectable from across the interstellar void - without life it shouldn't exist).
Free hydrogen atmosphere, of significant density?
Surface features unlikely for geology?
Something even more unexpected?

As nice as such speculations are, my bet is on a dead nitrogen ice ball.

 

[Unstung]

What can be liquid there?
30-40K temperature, give or take some.

Liquid Helium: 0.956K-4.22K
Liquid Hydrogen: 14K-20.2K
Liquid Neon: 24.5K-27K

According to phase diagrams:
Hydrogen would sublimate.
Helium would sublimate.
Neon would sublimate. (?)

You haven't considered pressure. The best bet is still an underground liquid ocean or cryovolcanism, both caused by radioactive decay.

 

[Artlav]

You haven't considered pressure.

Not necessarily, for the same reason humans don't explode in vacuum.
Creatures could have vacuum-proof skins, keeping enough pressure in.
However, that keeps the question of how they evolved in the first place.

Or enough pressure is created by the oceans being under ice/ground.
Or there could be some eutectic mixes that are liquid even in near-vacuum.

No liquid i'm aware of can exist in vacuum, so something would have to be assumed anyway - we are talking about life on Pluto, for crying out loud.

 

[Unstung]

Not necessarily, for the same reason humans don't explode in vacuum.
Creatures could have vacuum-proof skins, keeping enough pressure in.
However, that keeps the question of how they evolved in the first place.

Or enough pressure is created by the oceans being under ice/ground.
Or there could be some eutectic mixes that are liquid even in near-vacuum.

No liquid i'm aware of can exist in vacuum, so something would have to be assumed anyway - we are talking about life on Pluto, for crying out loud.

I thought you were referring to lakes on the surface of Pluto, but nonetheless life emerging from Pluto's environment where "energy is a premium", as you said, seems extremely unlikely. Any life would definitely be very slow.

Speaking of oxygen on Earth, methane could be a byproduct of life. Interestingly Pluto's atmosphere contains some methane but it's probably not produced by any organism.

 

[statickid]

we will discover an alien base, occupied by..... HUMANS FROM THE FUTURE!?!?!!!

Where they are observing us to discover their origins and the history of space flight.

 

[Pipcard]

we will discover an alien base, occupied by..... HUMANS FROM THE FUTURE!?!?!!!

Where they are observing us to discover their origins and the history of space flight.

And it will have a plutocratic government.

 

[MaverickSawyer]

And it will have a plutocratic government.

*ba dum tss*

 

[Traveller]

"Wait It Out", by Larry Niven.

 

[Lucy]

This fella:

 

[orb]

This fella:

Fleas look like aliens, indeed. :lol:

 

[kamaz]

Imagine if, during its' flyby in 2015, New Horizons returned evidence of life? How would the life be detected?

Take Earth. Earth's atmosphere contains a lot of oxygen -- but oxygen is very reactive, so it would have formed oxides, unless something is constantly replenishing it.

I'm not sure what chemistry you'd expect on Pluto, but if spectral signatures showed that there is no chemical equilibrium -- that would be a huge hint of life.

 

[Quick_Nick]

Pluto turns out to be a metal sphere, with indoor heating, covered in a thin layer of dust and ice.
"That's no dwarf planet!"

 

[spudman2]

Life...

What can be liquid there?
30-40K temperature, give or take some.

Liquid Helium: 0.956K-4.22K
Liquid Hydrogen: 14K-20.2K
Liquid Neon: 24.5K-27K

Helium and Neon are noble elements, not too reactive. Helium would also boil too easily.

So, Hydrogen based life.
Amoebas, sitting in the shadows or on the dark side.
Insect-like crawlers running around.
Crystalline tree-like growths.
Very slow, since energy is a premium, and heat is deadly.

Wow... Yes, life would have to be very slow, unless there were some sort of chemical source of energy. And with those temperature ranges, that's like a 10 degree margin of error before any creature would boil away... That scary, actually.

 

[Unstung]

The responses in this thread became very facetious very fast.

, this is the first comment on the second page. I'll actually (try to) contribute something (different).

Interestingly, Ceres is similar to Pluto in the respect that it may still hold onto a liquid ocean. Both dwarf planets will be visited in 2015 which is awesome. The warm core of Ceres might still keep the layers of ice underneath the surface warm, but it's unlikely after four billion years of cooling. I assume this is similar to what is happening in the interior of Pluto, but fortunately it is larger and possibly warmer. The type of life I expect on Pluto would survive in an ocean like Europa's.

I'll add a name of someone who knows a lot about Ceres, Julie Castillo-Rogez. Her presentations are extremely informative if I could understand all the concepts and vocabulary used, but I did learn some things about the dwarf planet.

Only guesses can be made on the nature of life formed on an icy world.

 

[Lucy]

, this is the first comment on the second page.

Unless you, like I, have a different pagination preference. The thread hasn't yet reached two pages for me.

 

[SiberianTiger]

Attention big, mean, hostile alien vessel hovering overhead in an obvious attack posture: This is Spathi Captain Fwiffo. I know you are going to torture me, so let's just get this over with right now. The coordinates of my homeworld, Spathiwa, are 241.6, 368.7, and the ultra-secret Spathi Cypher, which is known only by me and several billion other Spathi is "Huffi-Muffi-Guffi."

 

[Unstung]

As a sarcastic Orbiter-Forum discussion grows longer, the probability of a reference involving the bace approaches 1.

Oops.

But I really don't get what's the cause of this. Even the Uranus Trojan thread was more mature.

 

[Lucy]

As a sarcastic Orbiter-Forum discussion grows longer, the probability of a reference involving the bace approaches 1.

Oops.

But I really don't get what's the cause of this. Even the Uranus Trojan thread was more mature.

I thought it was a harmlessly tongue in cheek thread with some admittedly sensible parts about the topic. Is that bad?