Alien Environments
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 29 ก.ย. 2024
- Among the uncounted stars in this Universe there may be unnumbered strange new worlds, many of which may have environments unlike anything we've ever imagined.
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Credits:
Alien Civilizations: Alien Environments
Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur
Episode 364a, October 16, 2022
Written, Produced & Narrated by Isaac Arthur
Editors:
David McFarlane
Jason Burbank
Mikael Lampiranta
Graphics:
Katie Byrne
Ken York
Mafic Studios
Rapid Thrash
Sam Jones
Sergio Botero
Udo Schroeter
Cover Art:
Jakub Grygier www.artstation...
Music by:
Martin Rezny, "Lifelight"
Denny Schneidemesser, "Bridge Ambience"
Stellardrone, "A Moment of Stillness", "Cosmic Sunrise", "Limbo", "Red Giant"
Aerium, "Fifth Star of Aldebaran"
Miguel Johnson, "Strange New World"
![[TH] FS vs BME - VCT Ascension Pacific - Lower Bracket Final](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wnygqsR2Fig/mqdefault.jpg)
According to most casual sci-fi, most planets are earthlike and we don't even have to worry about alien pathogens when landing on them! So that pretty much settles it.
well, it'd be pretty unlikely for an alien pathogen to be able to infect us, incompatible biochemistry and all that
not impossible though so better be careful still
Isn't it trippy that every planet or moon is Class M? 🤔
If it’s extremely earth like to the point of same biochemistry that’s when you have to worry about alien pathogens the most
It's the laziest trope ever
Nearly a million subs Isaac, congrats and keep up the great work.
Never grow old and live forever is wat we need. And uplifting the ones able to create this article most first priority but my molucule that uplift people and animels is the molucule that wil make our live eturnal
Carbon Dioxide is good for plants if you can get the other things ok for plant life. Like juggling keeping everything flying at the same time.
The quantum cheeseburger brought me here
If we bombard Earth's atmosphere with wavelengths that CO2 absorbs, would that cause the CO2 to rise to the upper atmosphere where it could be blown off into space?
You asked What if we can't leave Earth? How about What if we cannot make an antigravity device?. I think we won't and, therefore, we will live in O'Neill cylinders and use planets, moons, and asteroids as resources sources, like we have oil drilling platforms
With a lack of ability of tolerating long term strange gravities, people will live on O'Neill cylinders with two week shifts, like oil platforms - two weeks on the platform, two weeks on O'Neill cylinder reacclimating to normal gravity and training, and living with family..
in an intinite universe everything that can happen will happen
But the rub is "can happen."
@@icecold9511 human talents are infinite
@@replica1052
But nature's talent isn't. Even we can't break chemistry or physics. Push them yes. But we can't make argon behave like oxygen.
@@icecold9511 we can sail faster than the wind
@@replica1052 but by using physics, not voodoo
I remember playing Elder Scrolls III Morrowind. The game are set on an volcanic island filled with strange lifeform. Gigantic mushrooms large as trees and alien creatures filling the wildlife, being used as beasts of burden by the locals, including "egg mining" where workers would go into the nests of giant insects to harvest eggs something only those that smelled right where allowed to do.
I remember that island, and given that it's been nearly 20 years since I played the game, it must have made an impression :)
With enough plutonium, we can make mushrooms that dwarf the Burj Khalifa 😉😂
Earth used to have giant mushrooms. There's a PBS Eons episode about it. Very interesting
Morrowind is truly an unforgettable experience that will stay with one for the rest of their life.
Small reminder that the solar eclipse on earth is probably a very rare event in the galaxy, and there's a good chance there will be a great deal of interstellar tourists. Come see it
If you're tired of tourists right now, just imagine they don't even share the same planet as you
Then the aliens had better hurry up. With earth moon distance gradually growing (meaning a smaller apparent lunar diameter) and the sun gradually increasing in diameter (larger apparent solar diameter) we only have about 600 million years left of good solar eclipses left. Although on the other hand, if you have easily available space flight you can see a solar eclipse of any planet and its star anytime you want, if you don't mind a view from a space craft instead of from a planet.
Alien AI could very easily set up it’s on TH-cam account, watch these videos and comment as another human.
It would never know
@@narxes …
If there is one thing Isaac is NOT…. It’s “artificial” 😊
Yes hope that's fitre ai doing TH-cam. Vers war agents hunnty. Goid peaches kme
I believe I read an essay by Asimov where he considered molecules which are similarly simple as water. NH4, CO, CO2, CH4, C2H6, SiH4, etc. He concluded that H2O was ideal in that it allows a greater temperature and pressure range to remain liquid compared to any of the rest.
I tend to agree with the reaosning on that.
@@isaacarthurSFIA By the way, i think there's too because H and O and quite common,
(Plus you misspelled reasoning)
Happy Sunday! The day is always made better by an Isaac Arthur video! Live long and prosper friends 🖖🏻
Health and long life 🖖
For a long time I've settled on the idea that any aliens and alien environments will APPEAR analogous to any of our systems we have, due simply to convergent evolution and physics.
For creatures you are almost always going to have photon receptors, (eyes) chemical receptors, (noses) and electro/pressure sensors (touch) and flying, crawling and swimming.
And you are always going to have deserts, forests, arctics and rivers and so on, and analogous lifeforms occupying niches for trees, cactus, lichen and algae.
Don't forget that any intelligent aliens would have to evolve with creativity, curiosity, abstract thinking and also opposable appendages that are capable of manipulating objects in intricate and complex ways so that they can create early tools.
Forests aren't a guarantee. Trees don't necessarily have to come along. One Fermi paradox answer is a lack of viable building material or early fuel.
Let's not forget that you need a repressive slaver system to mine "human ressources" ...like ours to create a mindless, murderous militaristic and expansionist tribe.
We primitives are not in a good place.
🌵 Cactus! 🌵
That could be true, but only if the planet has similar properties. For example, if the atmosphere blocks sunlight, you don't get vision.
It's true here on Earth too, different environments have different optimal creatures.
Give coordinates to alien hallucinogen planet pretty 🥺 please... Asking for a friend.
Hippie planet
As always, Issac is given great ideas for authors and worldbuilders. Thanks for another Scifi Sunday
Always fun to think about other worlds for worldbuilding.
The alien environment I've been contemplating lately is simply earth without the great oxygenation and with microbial mats continuing forward. It seems that in that lower energy environment purple sulfuric bacteria could form lichens with fungi that break down rock and the lower, dead, layers of thick chemo-synthetic bacterial mats. A sulfur and methane environment also would be warmer and might produce more life forms that can thrive on thermal radiation as well.
The interesting bit here is that the energy sources used would have a different chemical balance and use more energy sources . . . Solar, Thermal, and chemical being the dominant forces. Jaws, skeletons, and shells might take too much energy to be viable so you'd see less predation and more symbiotic relationships. Without jaws a predator is limited to eating things that are much smaller than the organism itself and that puts forth entirely different sets of evolutionary pressure.
Successful organisms would be things like cells with mitochondria inside, bacterial mats that share energy and feed on each others waste products, lichens . . . and of course without oxygen degrading DNA there would be less reason for sexual reproduction and perhaps more benefit to earlier forms of gene sharing. The role of scavenger and even predator both might be filled by fungal mycelium of various types with networks trading resources below the surface, and sprouting out large lichen bodies as a hedge against scarcity.
I reckon the view's vary, some might almost appear earth-like an many are far beyond what we could imagine. A great deal of future explorer's will have a long time trying to comprehend what they are dealing with.
Even with a clone of earth like in the physical traits you can get some surreal creatures like armored amphibians like temnospondyls which were reptile like amphibians often the size of crocodilians and looked like crocodilians
@@simonpetrikov3992 do you recall what astral traveller Robert monroe said, one of the world's he encountered had a civilization that appeared similar to crocodile's with an equal intelligence, I have no doubt he used that as a reference but they would look very little like an actual crocodile an just share some textual similarities, there's a great deal no doubt if we saw what the universe had to show would offer us many variations of life we would never expect, some might be close to humans where others would be entirely different.
absolutely perfect I needed something good to watch this morning 👌
/evening. In Yurope it´s allready let in the day...
🖖
Nothing like waking up to another SFIA Sunday Special.
Excellent video as always Isaac.
I gave it a like without watching, because you know it will be good 👍
I am ridiculously excited about this one!
Could somebody fill me in on 'quicksilver oceans'?
I had to take a break from this channel because ive just been too swamped with post-covid normalisation to keep up with regular SFIA mind-blows. So the first time I tune back in in earnest slams me with "county sized cylinder habitats where depleted uranium skinned sharks patrol quicksilver oceans."
🤦🤦🤦
I love this channel so much, it breaks my heart I can't keep up anymore.
I think liquid mercury oceans on a planet is just an extreme-case example of how weird an environment could be, especially if it was consciously made by a sapient species. But a naturally occurring mercury or quicksilver ocean is so improbable as to be super unlikely.
When you were talking about gold and planets it reminded me of treasure planet
I am curious to see what kind of plantimals would swim in the carbon dioxide seas. Soaking up the sunlight, drawing carbon from the "water" to photosynthesize and build their bodies, releasing oxygen that bubbles up into the dihydrogen monoxide ocean above them, to be absorbed by fish...
Yass Nothing like sleeping in and waking up to some SFIA!
Mountains of gemstones??? Wouldn't that be something to see 😮
Was watching the Alien languages and 2 species evolving videos, and now onto Alien environments.
💚👽💚
The Orion's Arm setting (a creative writing project, and a hard sci-fi transhumanist space opera with over 10 000 years of history, for those unfamiliar) has some truly bizarre aliens, and the first truly alien species (as opposed to long lost colony) that humanity's descendants run into are the To'ul'h, something like a mix of a starfish, an octopus and a headless flying squirrel, that evolved on the surface of a rather rare subtype of a Venus-type planet - one with a lot more water, which, due to the extreme pressures, is still a liquid despite being many times the boiling point on Earth. This is probably the most extreme environment I have ever seen a semi-plausable alien species evolve in, and it's presumably inspired by some paper on xenobiology. I'd say the chances are very slim, but it's an interesting possibility.
Suggested topic: Five questions to ask an alien.
Imagine a Ecumenopolis treetop-town hybrid. Arcology sized trees containing people and industry, plus smaller ones wrapping around the whole planet. Engineered and intertwined branches forming bridges between living buildings, specialized tall and thin trees reaching up high into the upper atmosphere, using lifting gases and perhaps active support to act as biological space towers. Heavier industry located deep underground, with lots of transport through the air or surface canals.
23:11 Because we are at the mercy of those who handles that information.
Sunday morning in an alien environment? Hell ya!
"Bio-forming" sounds like a great idea. Find or engineer some extremophile single-celled organism that can deal with the crazy conditions in Venus's upper atmosphere to sequester carbon and sulfur and maybe a few other nasties. With zero natural predators in the Venusian environment they might reproduce exponentially (at least until resources grow scarce in a few days). It's mad hubris of epic proportions to be sure, but you've got to start somewhere.
Yes it is
I truly hope you continue making videos for years to come! Thursdays are by far my favorite day of the week because of watching your content❤ it makes my imagination run wild and gives me hope for the future which at times seems very bleak. I truly mean you are my favorite channel and I am so glad I discovered you 4 years ago🎃👻 Happy spooky season
What happened to clone 8? You did not loose another one did you?
What are the implications of a slightly thicker atmosphere? Like let’s say earth just had an atmosphere 1.5 or even 2 times as dense.
And what is the interplay between atmosphere density and surface pressure? Can one be higher without the other being much higher?
Obviously there are the aspects of sounds being much different, but how would other sensations be affected? How would the terrain or basic things like water flows? Would life need any special adaptations?
Would ecosystems like jungles still work the same?
I am grateful for you and your clones' work! I always turn away from each episode feeling more enlightened than I was before.
Just wanted to say I've never seen much for people covering how alien worlds start vs how simple life could change it. Our world is dramatically different from it's start, and a lot is because of life. Microbes making oxygen, plants building up carbon, roots and fungi turning rock into soil.
Excellent and interesting as always. I believe Roger Zelazny was only able to narrate most of the Amber Chronicles, and they got someone in who sounded somewhat like him for the last two or three books.
You should check out Brian Stableford's Hooded Swan (Start Pilot Grainger) novels (Halcyon Drift, Raphsody in Black, etc) and his Daedalus Mission novels (The Florians, Critical Threshold, etc.). Both of these series explore alien worlds that are very interesting and engaging.
He did the abridged version for everything but Book 10, and unabridged I thought too but not sure if that was beyond book 5. I didn't care for the book 10 narrator, it felt like he was aiming for 'spooky', but I loved the ones Zelazny did and the music intro/outros on them.
I've heard of Stableford and mostly positively, so I'll have to check him out
I'm shocked that there was talk of sci-fi world-building and no mention of Alan Dean Foster. Sentenced to Prism, the Icerigger series, as well as the Pip and Flinx books are filled with exotic environments and worlds.
As a spec evo thought experiment I came up with an eyeball planet where a constant firestorm at the planets day-pole keeps burning up all the oxygen in the atmoshpere, but there is still plenty in the planet's oceans in the twilight band and on the night side. That doesn't mean dry land and especially the scorched day side are lifeless though. A vast network of transparent lichen and plants with glass-like leaves create a constant stream of oxygen rich water deep into the dry breathless desert. Land dwelling creatures get the oxygen they need by sucking water from this lichen layer and storing it in their gill-bladder
Someday I wish I could boldly go where no man has gone before.
i would love to travel to a dimension where earth as a clone to this one, but, ftl is possible and aliens are biologicaly fuckable
You could probably lay with an alien but the question is biological compatibility.
AKA kids and can those kids have kids or are they sterile.
@@marrqi7wini54 that is a good question, and i am sure that there is some dimension where i can kkk
@@marrqi7wini54 like mules
@@marrqi7wini54 like mules
Sci-fi Sunday is always a great day!
There's a lot of "Great Filters", but what might other worlds have that would make life _more_ likely? *queue intro*
Have people looked into that? Seems like a thing that should be considered for the Rare Earth hypothesis, but I haven't heard about it yet...
Isaac are you and David betting on who gets to 1 million subscribers. You guys are getting closer! Chris
No, though I suspect he'll beat me there, Joe Scott and I had that bet back when we both had 100k and were oscillating back and forth for who had more but he ended up creaming me :)
@@isaacarthurSFIA to funny lol
Some of my favorite sci-fi stories and games are about being stranded on alien worlds. Like Pikmin, you are crashed on an alien world with a toxic atmosphere (for you) but filled with life. You have to put your ship back together within 30 days, before your air runs out, with the help of the local fauna.
In one of the bad endings, you have to transform yourself into one of the local fauna in order to survive.
I recommend a story be written about life on Titan, life that operates 10,000x slower.
We have been there for 1000's of years before we even realized the damage and death we caused. Now facing 'the locals' fighting back and Titan environmentalists rebellion, what do we do?
In part 2, when it's 100,000 years later , things get a lot more interesting as humans have reached another dark ages and "the locals" have had generations to adapt and communicate. What have they said?
What would the trees on earth tell us now? If it took their intelligence and self awareness 10's of thousands of years to operate and many generations to decide on a message.. What would our trees tell us! How!
Hard to believe that you're the same 'wascally wabbits' guy. Your speech therapy is coming so far, Isaac!
Omega Mart exists on Earth, so basically yeah in a Kardashev 2 civ there are bound to be some bizarre space habs out there for fun 👍
would be cool with an episdode of different environment emerged from the many states of mather based on different pressure and temprature. Would we even know how to look for life in such environment given it would be so alien to what we know.
What would they look like? A suspicious number of them may look shockingly similar to Vancouver, New Zealand, or California.
I know you said it in passing joke, but I would LOVE to hear a sci-fi story taking place on a planet with a sentient mycelium network
Sapphire mountains and ruby landscapes?
Slaanesh is pleased.
Thanks. Shall we assume the Magrathean Planetary Catalog was down for maintenance today? ;) tavi.
Great video as always, there should be a university named after you called ''Isaac Arthur University'' :) (if there isn't already)
Hey what's the name of the music in the intro it's an absolute banger
here's a recent Idea I've had for an alien environment: What if there were a gas giant or brown dwarf in the interstellar void or the outer fringe of a star system with a moon or planet subjected to tidal heating similar to Io. Now say the moon or planet is massive enough to hold an atmosphere and also receives enough energy from tidal heating to have Earth like surface temperatures. The amount of tidal heating necessary would depend on the thickness of the world's atmosphere and its ability to trap heat, so there would be a range of parameters that would produce such a world. Furthermore, a world like this would have the same advantages of an ice shell moon in that its habitability would not depend on its placement within a star's habitable zone.
As for the environment itself, the intense tidal heating would result in extreme levels of volcanism on the surface, so there could be lakes and rivers of molten lava alongside bodies of liquid water. The atmosphere would likely consist mostly of volcanic gases, so you would wear a breathing apparatus before going into a lightsaber duel instead of after you almost burn to death from not having the high ground. Moving back to serious discussion, though, I imagine the would would be completely covered in cloud layers since the volcanic gases of its atmosphere would freeze out at different altitudes with little or no light energy reaching the world from the outside. One thing I find interesting about this hypothetical world is that it's probably the only place that could be called a "hell world" where a person could theoretically step foot on the surface wearing nothing but a breathing mask. Any life on such a world would probably rely on chemosynthesis like the ecosystems found at deep sea hydrothermal vents on Earth. An oxygenic analogue to photosynthesis that exploits thermal gradients, if possible, could also allow for complex life on such a world.
As a caveat, however, I can see how the abundance of carbon dioxide in the world's atmosphere from volcanic emissions could cause the lightning suppression problem Isaac mentioned in the video.
Although his name was only mentioned in passing I want to highlight again Robert Forward. "Dragon's Egg" and "Camelot 30K" highlight unique analyses of extreme alien environments and how life might happen in those environments. Namely life on the surface of a neutron star or on an extremely low temperature rogue extra solar planet.
What's most scary to me is, that there is a possibility we are the first and maybe the only life form on entire universe. Sounds unlikely, but not impossible.
I would say first or only species in the milky way galaxy before including the whole universe.
I’m suspicious of the reasons why? We may actually be in a “28 days later” opening scenario. Where the main character wakes up in what should be a thriving city full of people… but alone simply because she missed the horrors that transpired while she slept.
Residue of Ferme events in the order of 100,000+ super nova’s worth of energy each, linger from a sideways facing core blackhole…. How many civilizations could have come before us, only to have been purged by that sleeping giant in the center of the galaxy? We may have lucked out, and currently alone simply due to our late emergence, during its long hibernation period.😅
@@MarsStarcruiser Hopefully, unlike in 28 days later, the rotting and decaying remanants of fallen civilisations don't all want to eat us.
24.00: Issac calculates the odds, his arms spread wide.
I don't know if you meant to, but this reminded me of the Darmok episode of Star Trek the Next Generation.
"Darmok and Jalad… they left together." "Temba, his arms wide."
Haha
@@joshjones6072 Yep. Exactly what I was going for haha.
All mushrooms are edible, some are only edible once.
Hey! I just finished re-reading my full set of the Chronicles of Amber. Excellent books.
Great books.
Have you read The Broken Empire by Mark Lawrence. I've found a lot of similarities. Might pass as some lighter enjoyable reading if you've liked the Chronicles of Amber
🎉🎉🎉
"ecosystem evolved around feeding a natural nuclear reactor"
Technically, this should still be possible on Earth. Just with a heavy water/Natural Uranium reactor like CANDU and a ton of Deuterium enrichment.
This is a great topic, very interesting
I do wonder if Earth is actually capable of originating life at the moment. You'd think this would be something that could be observed. Life had to begin somewhere, somehow, and I'm not inclined to belief that shift from inert compounds to life was supernatural. But is it something that requires extreme conditions? Have we observed the beginnings of life appearing on Earth yet? Could it be that we're looking for life on Earth-like planets but that life can only actually originate on far more hostile and specific worlds. And that would be a Fermi paradox solution. It doesn't just require specific conditions, it requires a specific series of conditions to go from life existing at all, to life existing in a form we'd recognise as animals or plants.
If im the only one lets say thats this smart but i am not able to make al technologie. What would be benofiting my need for tech i can not make my self .. uplift the one that ar able when uplifted right . Then we can share knowlige
Thank you so much for your wonderful work. FRIENDLY from Romania, Constantin Pop.
You say trillions of worlds, but looking at our solar system as an example, if you include large-enough-to-be-spheical moons, planetoids, and asteroid-like objects, then the vast majority will either be gas giant or airless wasteland. A far cry from the infinite environments you mention towards the beginning.
What about the toxic relationship between unified field theory and quantum gravity?
I am pretty certain I would not want the Klingons settling in the US, although they probably would be useful in curbing crime rates in certain major cities.
That thought came to me the other day. I watched a short clip about the James Webb telescope picking up numerous unidentified objects in space which were instantly jumped on by certain people as an invasion force. But I thought what if the so called invasion force turned out to be a fleet of generation ships. Would we invite them with open arms or due to our over populated planet turn them away?
If DNA, RNA, and mitochondrial DNA can exist then neural networks that evolve into intelligence can be that much more of a stretch.
The concept of convergent evolution shows that there is only so many blueprints that living things can be based on, so to speak. The laws of physics have resulted in things in our universe taking on certain shapes, no matter the location. Planets are round. Stars achieve fusion at a certain mass. Planets meeting certain criteria can be covered in ice, liquid water, or water vapor. There is no reason to believe that any living thing wouldn't be subject to the same laws of nature as life on Earth. Therefore, it is reasonable to extrapolate that pretty much any extraterrestrial life in our universe would look similar to life on our planet, or at least you could extrapolate its appearance based on the physical characteristics of its environment. This might mean that our universe might be full of Planets, some full of plants similar to ours, some full of dinosaurs, and some even full of creatures similar to humans.
This gentleman's content never ceases to ignite wonder and further curiosity in my own journey. Thanks for the amazing content, to you and your team ❤
I'm excited about this. Its always been in the back of my mind how it would work for us.
I'm glad he points out Venus is the better target for colonization. Mars will make weak humans.
Maybe that is where the Big Rock Candy Mountains are... With its' lakes of stew and whiskey, too!
One of the most fascinating things I’ve seen in person was a block of aluminum floating on molten zinc. Metal floating on metal 🤘
Hailstones keep bouncing off my head, that doesn't mean that my hair will soon be turned and red, bleeding is not for me...
It took me only 3 videos for you to become my favorite youtuber. And I like A LOT of things on you tube
Oh great, this is high IQ brain candy !
I'm just glad there was no quiz
I'd love to see this turn into a series!
A planetary system or even star hosting the distant descendants of Neumann capable machines would be neat.
Love ur vids dude I watch literally all of em🔥‼️👌💯🙏🏆
I wonder will the first human to breathe an alien planets just get killed by an allergic reaction to alien pollen?.
Which forum is the one with the discussion on lava tube ecologies? Thank you.
the intro music is a bit too loud and not pleasant to rest to. Would you mind lower its volume a bit? I think a lot of people who sleep to your soothing voice will appreciate it
I've always been fascinated by the idea of some fast spinning plannet having an equatorial continental buldge/mountain range separating the planet into a northern and southern ocean divided by a continuous piece of land, with different chemical makeup/levels of salts and biology in each hemisphere. Combined with a continuous forest fire circling the planet annually for geologically/ecologically/evolutionary relevant periods of time caused by very strongly prevailing winds or mega-hurricanes spinning in opposite directions in each hemisphere.
I've also been fascinated with the idea of two branches of life with different chirality for each braches' proteins successfully competing despite organisms from each branch being practically chemically unable to interact with each other.
2:10 was that custom made just for this sentence or did you have it somewhere on your computer in a folder titled weird images, and just found a use for it?
If your ship is in trouble, you will always, just barely make it to a habitable planet, or moon.
Interesting.
I bet worlds are varied enough that we may look strange and toxic too an animal looking in.
Greg igan "diaspora".... Femto Clark tech.
Just ask the locals, they all seem to speak colloquial English anyway.
hmm maybe for non-normal.. the author Hal Clement (Harry Clement Stubbs) thinks of some different environments. Mission of Gravity is a good example.
Absolutely. No one was better at going "Here's this odd item, how would that affect a world?" I was waiting for him to be mentioned, and disappointed he wasn't.
I'd think the direction the sun appears to rise in ought to be east, by definition.