Here is my suggestion to add more variations to alien life forms that can be found in the Milky way. We are currently limited to carbon-water and carbon-ammonia biochemistries, which is reasonable because life based on carbon and water/ammonia looks like the most probable one (see: "Carbon chauvinism"). But in the same time, this doesn't mean that other options are impossible. Yes, we think that the chances for vastly different biochemistry to arise are considerably smaller, or perhaps minuscule, but the jury is still out on this so to speak, and it will be out for a long time to come. We have a lot to learn.
In this sense, worlds I am proposing should be indeed a very rare sight to see (some more, some less). Accordingly, discovery of such unusual phenomena shoud return pretty big pile of cash to lucky explorer (this is not the main point, though).
Table with the data:
****************************************************************
*** direct link for the picture (save and zoom): http://i.imgur.com/UsOSy2w.jpg ***
****************************************************************
Just to add a few notes.
I've spent quite some time researching into this matter and I must admit that I was struggling to understand large portion of what was written. Perhaps things could have been slightly easier for me if I actually payed attention on my chemistry classes
. But, to my relief, I found out that even the eminent experts readily admit that we simply do not know enough to draw any definite conclusion. Genesis and evolution of life is extremely tough subject - there are too many factors and uncertainties to take into account. Thus, lot of speculations and guesses are going on in academic circles, and debates are pretty lively.
Existence of life on neutron stars, or living plasma clouds are surely among the weirder possibilities. Not the weirdest, though - imagine creatures made of dark matter (Photino Birds from the Xeelee sequence by Stephen Baxter for example), sentient planets (novel "Solaris" by Stanislaw Lem, there are two movies as well), or... I don't know, multidimensional beings travelling through multiverses, etc. I thought that some of this might be a bit too much of a stretch -and almost certainly beyound the human scope- so I skipped that.
Interesting thing is that, due to our limited experience, we cannot completely write off anything. We just don't know enough - universe is incredibly huge playground and we're barely starting to scratch its surface.
Also, my apologies to chemists and (astro)biologists among you: please, don't be too harsh with critics. I did my best to assemble bits and pieces scattered around and to compile that into something based on scientific investigations and as such, relatively viable (key word - relatively). Oh, and easy to read - I left out whole bunch of numbers, graphs and notes to avoid unnecessary clutter. After all, it's just a mere proposal for a game - not a doctorate
In this sense, worlds I am proposing should be indeed a very rare sight to see (some more, some less). Accordingly, discovery of such unusual phenomena shoud return pretty big pile of cash to lucky explorer (this is not the main point, though).
Table with the data:
*** direct link for the picture (save and zoom): http://i.imgur.com/UsOSy2w.jpg ***
****************************************************************
Just to add a few notes.
I've spent quite some time researching into this matter and I must admit that I was struggling to understand large portion of what was written. Perhaps things could have been slightly easier for me if I actually payed attention on my chemistry classes
. But, to my relief, I found out that even the eminent experts readily admit that we simply do not know enough to draw any definite conclusion. Genesis and evolution of life is extremely tough subject - there are too many factors and uncertainties to take into account. Thus, lot of speculations and guesses are going on in academic circles, and debates are pretty lively.Existence of life on neutron stars, or living plasma clouds are surely among the weirder possibilities. Not the weirdest, though - imagine creatures made of dark matter (Photino Birds from the Xeelee sequence by Stephen Baxter for example), sentient planets (novel "Solaris" by Stanislaw Lem, there are two movies as well), or... I don't know, multidimensional beings travelling through multiverses, etc. I thought that some of this might be a bit too much of a stretch -and almost certainly beyound the human scope- so I skipped that.
Interesting thing is that, due to our limited experience, we cannot completely write off anything. We just don't know enough - universe is incredibly huge playground and we're barely starting to scratch its surface.
Also, my apologies to chemists and (astro)biologists among you: please, don't be too harsh with critics. I did my best to assemble bits and pieces scattered around and to compile that into something based on scientific investigations and as such, relatively viable (key word - relatively). Oh, and easy to read - I left out whole bunch of numbers, graphs and notes to avoid unnecessary clutter. After all, it's just a mere proposal for a game - not a doctorate
Last edited:
