Life Based Planet - Possible problems

A fun part of exploring is imagining the results of the different life based planet variables.

For example this planet....




with 77.8% oxygen I'd imagine there are issues with fire, even with a very chilly mean temperature of just under 1 Celsius (Earth is 33c avg). That said with so much oxygen would living things have extra strength? Or at least fire breathing dragons.
 

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That's a water world which means it's primary life is ocean based, probably why there is so much O2 as of all the plankton etc. Being a terraform candidate makes it quite profitable to.;)
 
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With the high carbon dioxide, that planet would likely be primordial, something like Earth before the dinosaurs but locked in an ice age. No volcanism, though, would limit the amount of rare minerals that higher life forms require. Maybe meteor hits might provide some, or drop a couple of the larger stations into the atmosphere. On the other hand, no volcanoes would also mean no venting, so those sulphur-breathers that run on high temperatures would be throttled.

An interesting find!
 
All the comments in this thread are based on the assumption of earth style, oxygen based, lifeforms.

What if its something else? For example, on a water world with high oxygen, corrosion would be a massive problem for anything metallic. And with such a sulphur content, the water is very likely to be acidic, much along the lines of very strong acid rain.

Which, though not related, then sends thoughts off into lifeforms that dont use iron in heamoglobin.

With only one known example of life so far (ours) it could very well be that our style of life is by far the most unusual, and thinking in terms opposite to that is the way forward.
 
with 77.8% oxygen I'd imagine there are issues with fire

Pressure is 0.04 atmospheres.

Way less available oxygen than on Earth.

That said with so much oxygen would living things have extra strength? Or at least fire breathing dragons.

If it were at similar pressure to earth, some organisms could be much larger than they are on earth.

Back when Earth's atmosphere was ~35% O2, there were all sorts of giant invertebrates that probably could not survive now.
 
Well, no matter the basis of the life, the lack of volcanism required for the transfer of minerals into the biosphere would limit the complexity of the native life form: carbon based, sulphur-based, whatever. You need trace minerals to perform catalytic metabolism especially in that cold an environment.

Carbon-based life exists at our relatively warm termperature since oxygen provides an efficient and simple metabolic fuel. Much hotter, and oxygen would be overtaken by other gases, especially carbon dioxide which are much harder to metabolize without catalysts. Plants can metabolize carbon dioxide, but they need specialized chlorophyll. That kind of evolutionary development requires many unique trace minerals, and it limits the growth of the organism which is why plants don't run around like triffids.

In a colder environment like this planet, again, you'd need catalyzers to boost chemical action needed for metabolism. The highest available oxygen content would be fairly deep underwater, but likely it's being bubbled up to the surface and maybe trapped in the ice. Without volcanoes, it would be hard to make trace minerals needed for catalysis available.

Life would likely be some kind of slow-growing algae at best. Iron would likely be the most available metal since the core should be solid. So carbon-based life would be the most likely.

On the other hand, this planet could make a fairly good home for species that aren't native... humans... or otherwise. But it's not going to grow much on its own without climate and geological change on a massive scale.
 
Thanks for the replies. I think then it's unlikely that there would be super strong fire breathing dragons on that planet.

I'll have to read up on atmospheric pressures and the effect of gravity, temperature on its density.

Given the picture I presume the planet is mostly water ( I wish the provided that stat land/water) and did not notice "weather systems".

All that makes me think the life forms would just be in the water.

points from thread
- no visible weather systems
- looks to be mostly water
- Atmospheres could be generally thought of as originating from the water, seismic activity, fire and plants. So without volcanic activity it's likely this planets water has allot of sulfur
- metabolism would not be a problem...less the risk of combustion lol
 
254K temperature is around freezing for water. But that's OK if the planet still has a molten core. Remember: it's not right up against the sun like the picture shows it to be. The orbital period is 500+days, so it's probably quite a ways out.
 
Here is another one but much more strange. A life based gas planet.

Water Based - 3.jpg

Description describes gaseous "radio-plankton algae" that get its energy from "intense radiation flux". That seems to imply the life forms get their energy specifically from electo-magnitism (like tiny floating antennas lol) So they'd be electric powered life forms lol

Looks like FD put some effort into the descriptions. Ive only just started reading them so not sure if they're only a handful of different ones.
 
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Gas giants are, well, think of the biggest balloon you can imagine rubbing against a cosmic carpet. Between their massive ability to collect solar energy, their titanic gravity well, and the tidal action of their moons, they generate what are essentially truly enormous stores of static electricity. Given banded atmospheres, it's not outside the realm of possibility that they are the universe's largest capacitors. So there is a lot of free energy available to a gas giant, even if it is far from a sun. That kind of electricity has a combinative effect on amino acids, should they form in the denser central layers of the atmosphere. Presumably, they could collect in an atmosphere the same way that algal sludge collects in our ocean. That means life! It's not a new idea, but it's difficult for us to assess just yet. I think the great Arthur C. Clarke was one of the greatest champions for planktonic life in Jupiter's atmosphere.
 
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