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Extraterrestrial

Alien life could thrive without a home planet, study suggests

By T.K. Randall
October 30, 2024 · Comment icon 12 comments

What if a planet wasn't necessary ? Image Credit: NASA / Rick Guidice
We tend to assume that an alien civilization would have its own home world - but what if they didn't actually need one ?
Given that the only example of life that we know of is right here on Earth, it's reasonable to assume that any alien civilizations out there must have a similarly habitable home world to call their own.

But what if this didn't have to be the case ?

In a new study penned by researchers from Harvard and the University of Edinburgh, scientists looked at the possibility of a civilization that can thrive out in space without having to rely on planetary bodies.

Could a species live entirely within self-sustaining ships, stations and colonies ?

Perhaps this could even foreshadow our own destiny, thousands of years in the future.

"Most astrobiology research over the past few decades has focused on increasing our understanding of life's diversity and evolution on Earth and searching for Earth-like environments (past or present) in the solar system and beyond," the researchers wrote.

"One obvious yet often neglected fact in this debate is that we already have direct evidence of life existing beyond Earth, in the form of human space missions."
"However, humans are simply a particularly complex form of life, so it is interesting to consider how much complexity is really needed for life to sustain itself beyond Earth."

It's certainly true that if we can build habitable, self-contained environments that can travel through space, then an advanced alien civilization will be able to do it too - and a lot better than we can.

Perhaps, though, it may even be possible for life to sustain its own habitable environment without having to rely on any technology at all.

"Temperature, pressure, volatile loss, radiation levels and nutrient availability all appear to be surmountable obstacles to the survival of photosynthetic life in space or on celestial bodies with thin atmospheres," the researchers added.

"Biologically generated barriers capable of transmitting visible radiation, blocking ultraviolet, and sustaining temperature gradients of 25-100 K and pressure differences of 10 kPa against the vacuum of space can allow habitable conditions between 1 and 5 astronomical units in the solar system."

"Hence ecosystems capable of generating conditions for their own survival are physically plausible, given the known capabilities of biological materials on Earth."

You can read the study for yourself - here.

Source: The Debrief | Comments (12)




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Recent comments on this story
Comment icon #3 Posted by Ell 5 days ago
Homeostasis is required for life to continue and to procreate. No homeostasis results in death and the end of the species.
Comment icon #4 Posted by Trelane 5 days ago
That photo reminds me of old Omni magazine covers.
Comment icon #5 Posted by Djehuty 5 days ago
I believe this photo represents the idea of an O'Neil cylinder. It refers to a space colony in which two cylinders rotate in opposite directions to balance the gyroscopic effects, making it easier to align with a star.
Comment icon #6 Posted by iAlrakis 5 days ago
If you have that level of technology it makes sense. It's the most independent you can get.
Comment icon #7 Posted by Abramelin 5 days ago
Heh, you still believe that?  
Comment icon #8 Posted by Portre 5 days ago
Sorry to rain on everyone's parade, but there is a large step, evolutionarily and technologically, between single cell organisms and a space faring civilization. Single cell organisms, even colonies of single cell organisms, in non-terrestrial environments are conceivable but a technological alien civilization requires a home world. An advanced civilization may colonize an asteroid belt, for example, or they may be travelling in generational ships, but that colony and those ships had a home world, or the ships used to colonize and build bigger ships had a home world. What would be the environ... [More]
Comment icon #9 Posted by Djehuty 5 days ago
An extraterrestrial civilization definitely needs a home world as a starting point. These life forms must have evolved somewhere. Perhaps they had to leave their planet due to catastrophic events. In a space colony, they could harvest food. If they can generate gravity, which would be a must for the whole project. They could also harvest the resources they require from planets, moons, and asteroids in their solar system. It all depends on how advanced such a civilization would be.  
Comment icon #10 Posted by Hazzard 5 days ago
Everything above a Type One Civilization would be able to do that. https://kardashev.fandom.com/wiki/Type_I
Comment icon #11 Posted by Ell 2 days ago
That is limited to centrifugal force as a simulated form of gravity. Or continuous acceleration - which is a dead end.
Comment icon #12 Posted by BadChadB33 11 hours ago
The Borg do a pretty good job at living without a planet.


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