Ice Water Worlds

I am getting caught up with my Astronomy magazine reading and was reading the article "Saturn's small wonders" in the March 2018 issue in which Francis Reddy discusses how "the Saturn system is also home to some of our solar system's most intriguing moons."

For example, Atlas and Pan both have equatorial ridges formed from the accretion of ring material, making them appear, as Reddy describes,  like ravioli. In an ice moon in a ring system of a gas giant, an ice moon large enough to have oceans under the ice, this accretion could form an equatorial mountain range which, because of gravity, would press down on the equatorial ice (though the spinning moon would counteract some of that) forming an ice ceiling mountain range.

Another thought involves air pockets under the ice. Moons orbiting large planets tend to be "massaged" by gravitational forces, especially if the orbits of the moons are not perfectly circular. This keeps adding energy to the moons, heating their core, creating dynamic worlds: undersea volcanism. This helps mix chemicals, increasing the chances of life forming (indeed, undersea vents on Earth are teeming with life and many feel that life may have gotten its start around such vents) as well as producing air bubbles.

So imagine sentient life evolving in such an ice-covered water world. The sky is a thick barrier of ice that has upside down ice mountains and valleys with air. For such life, this would be normal. A mostly dark world, lit up by the occasional volcano (most would be volcanic vents issuing gas but no bright lava), and, quite possibly, life forms that are bioluminescent; a mostly dark world that has a seabed with mountains and an ice roof with ice mountains. The whole universe is contained between the two. At the top of the universe are scattered air pockets and the sky cracks, with water flowing up to who knows where until the crack closes or freezes shut.

The sentient creature wonders: "What is beyond the ice roof? Where does that water go? Is there another water universe beyond that ice roof--a shared ice roof with another universe? But then why does the water only flow into that other universe and no water flows in? What comes in, comes in via the seabed vents...is there an ice base under the seabed? So are the worlds nested within each other?" Does their Jules Verne create a story of a journey to the center of their world only to break through and find another ice world?

Image: "Small Wonders." Cassini. NASA. 28 June 2017. "This montage of views from NASA's Cassini spacecraft shows three of Saturn's small ring moons: Atlas, Daphnis and Pan at the same scale for ease of comparison."

(Mostly) Water Worlds

Imagine a super Earth that is mostly covered in water. Landmasses are few and scattered. What would be the consequences for the development of an advanced civilization?

Landmass Size

For development of an advanced civilization on a super water world, I think it would have to be a water world where the landmasses are not miniscule. Tiny scattered islands would not give much evolutionary chances, or pressures, for life to leave the ocean (there would be but one ocean on a water world). What benefit would there be? There would not be enough territory for land creatures to have a go at it. There may be creatures that learn to live in the shallows, and there would probably be more shallow areas than areas above the ocean surface; and those creatures may venture at times on the land. Maybe some would evolve to use the land to lay eggs - protection from egg eaters. Some plant life that survive on the surface of the ocean could also end up being OK on the tiny islands - being small land masses, on a very large water world would mean waves, storms, rain, as well as a humid atmosphere (we suspect super Earths would have thick atmospheres, and may be steamy or humid). This atmosphere would potentially offer more protection from ultra violet radiation than our atmosphere, making it easier for surface water plants to survive periods on the land masses.

But for larger land masses - large enough to support evolution of land creatures - that is a different tale. Large land masses allow room for life to evolve permanent settlers, for a complex enough, and large enough, ecosystem to allow for permanent land adaptation. Once life evolves species to permanent adapt to land, they can then spread to smaller, relatively nearby, landmasses.

Landmass Separations

On a super Earth, even large land masses, close to Earth continents in size, would be separated by vast stretches of water - a vastness that would make our oceans seem like large lakes by comparison.

On Earth, landmasses separated for long periods show us divergent evolutionary paths. Each continent on a super Earth water world would have little biological communication with each other, at least for creatures that become fully established as land creatures. Semi-aquatic could eventually find their way to other landmasses, but those that evolve to be on land - each landmass would be a separate evolutionary laboratory.

An Aside

I have to stop for a moment here. While the evidence for evolution is overwhelming, it still has its holes, and thus it needs refining. But I also think that the Grand Designer of the universe has created the marvelous, awe inspiring, supremely elegant and beautiful natural laws that brought the universe to life. It's a sonnet, controlled by some regulations and restrictions, but allowing for so much expression within. For me, evolution is not anti-spiritual, but is evidence of a grand design, a remarkable design, that allows for such an incredible range of life in this universe. Many, many different songs of life, a Universe Symphony. And so, as science uncovers more truths of the universe, we will learn more of this Grand Design, and discover more of the beauty, the genius, the elegance of the Universe. This outlook informs my speculations. See "Introduction" for more on this blog's focus.

Evolutionary Laboratories

While the landmass lifeforms will have evolved from the same one ocean, the greatly separated major landmasses would allow for different evolutionary paths. Convergent evolution, where organisms not closely related (not monophyletic) independently evolve similar traits, would come into play, of course: lifeforms evolving similar adaptations because the occupy similar niches such as climbing trees, hunting at night, and eating burrowing insectoids. They would be on the same planet, within that planet's gravity well, magnetic field, and living through the planet's seasons as it orbits its star. But there will be variations in how each landmass' lifeforms specifically adapt. Natural disasters may affect one landmass while another is barely even touched by it - for instance, a supervolcano exploding on one landmass, but as the planet is a super Earth, and the landmasses greatly separated, the devastating effects of a supervolcano on this super Earth would not have the same global impact as a supervolcano explosion on Earth would. A meteor strike on a super water world would have less of a global impact, for the same size meteor, as that strike would on the Earth. A tsunami from an ocean strike would have much further to go, on a world with higher gravity, dissipating more of the tsunami's energy by the time it strikes a landmass than it would on the Earth. Not that there still would not be global effects from major disasters, it is just that with vast distances between at least some of the landmasses the effects for some areas of the planet would be much reduced. This would allow for very different end results. 

Dinosaurs Kingdoms and Mammal Kingdoms?   

If the Earth was a super water world, where it had, say, the same overall landmasses but with much, much greater distances between some of them due to the vastness of the global ocean, one result is that one continent would still have dinosaurs evolving, while another continent would have the dinosaurs wiped out, and the mammals evolving. Would this result in a sentient warm-blooded dinosaur race (probably feathered) on one continent, and sentient warm-blooded furry mammal race on another continent - intelligent descendants of the dinosaurs ruling one continent while intelligent humans ruling another? If the dinosaurs were not wiped out, could they have continued evolving, surviving the changing Earth to become sentient? Birds are the descendants of dinosaurs. Some birds, like crows, have brains twice the size needed for control of their bodies - they are much smarter than the other birds. Some even make tools (Caledonia crows can take a twig, strip it, and then work it until it has a hook at one end so that it can use it to hook insects burrowed in holes). If the dinosaurs were not wiped out by natural disaster(s) (some think more than one disaster ended their reign), could some have evolved to human level intelligence? 

What a world that would be. One day, an explorer from the dinosaur kingdom coming across the human kingdom, or vice versa.

Exploration

Which leads to my next speculation for this long post. For a world where continents are separated by distances many times what our continents are separated by, what would that mean for exploration? A sentient being is probably a curious one, and with a need to do some exploring, expanding territory. 

But as we see from our past, a large ocean is perilous to traverse. Many of our ancestors still did - we are finding that they traveled more, and farther, than we first thought. But it was perilous, and many resisted. For a continent that had only a few islands nearby and then nothing else, many early ships would leave to either never return or to return with no sightings of land. This would hold true for centuries as their sailing technology would not be enough to cover the incredible distances needed to get to another continent. The pressure to develop this technology would not be great - there is just no evidence for them, no tales of far off countries - just the known boundaries of their continent, the small islands off the coast, and that is it. The known world. The center of the world, and of the universe, as known to them. 

This separation, this loneliness, would allow the separated sentient beings on the separated continents to progress on their own, focusing on their known world, their center of the world. Until one day at least one progresses to the point where they can begin to think of exploring the universe. As knowledge increases, as they being to realize their world is a giant sphere, they may again wonder if some continent lies far, far away, just like we use to wonder if sentient life existed on Mars, or the Moon. Scientific exploration leads to technology that finally enables them to send a probe around the planet, or a long range probe to cross the seas (though a planet orbiting probe is the much more efficient means), and they spot it - another continent. 

Contact

And now the final speculations for this long post What myriad of ways that could play out? A civilization more advanced but for some reason didn't launch an orbiting probe (their culture focused more inward for whatever reasons - political,  theological, or distracted by a more harsh environment and needing to spend more energies there). Or a civilization less advanced. People similar in body form, but still different enough: humanoid but with tails, or humanoid but much smaller. Or more aggressive. Or not humanoid at all. The first contact hidden by the government of the country that sent the probe because of the differences - delaying actual contact. Or used by the government to rally their dissafected people against a perceived enemy?  Or this other land thought of as being heaven, or hell, or .... So very many different ways that first contact could play out.

Another Reason Water is Important for Life

© Image courtesy NASA/MSFC

Ocean Powered Magnetism

A new theory says that salty ocean currents may be an overlooked source for the Earth's magnetic field. A magnetic field is important to protect the planet's surface from damaging ultraviolet rays. But it also protects the atmosphere from the eroding effects of the energized particles of the solar wind - though it is imperfect protection - the magnetosphere is responsible for causing some leakage by funneling some of the energy into the upper atmosphere and heating it up.

This still does not rule out life developing on desert planets, especially planets with higher gravity and thus thicker atmospheres. I wonder if a large habitable moon circling a gas giant could benefit from the giant's magnetic field?

However, if it turns out that our oceans contribute to our planet's protective magnetic shield in no small manner, then it adds impetus for us to search for planets with large bodies of water.

Tidal Mixing and the Rise of Life

Water, as mentioned in earlier posts, may also be critical when combined with tectonic activity (whether from internal forces or from external tidal forces generated from orbiting a large gas giant) to the rise of life. For example, as mentioned in an earlier post (Life Outside the "Zone"), some scientists feel that the Moon was essential to the origin of life on the Earth due to the tidal mixing which helped to mix, mainly from erosion caused by the tides, chemicals from the soil with the oceans, creating the chemical soup from which life arose.


References:

"The Earth's magnetic field remains a charged mystery." Institute of Physics News. 14 June 2009. Web. 16 June 2009. <http://www.iop.org/News/news_35352.html>.

Ryskin, Gregory. "Secular variation of the Earth's magnetic field: induced by the ocean flow?" New J. Phys. Vol. 11. 2009. (23pp) <http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/1367-2630/11/6/063015>.

Alien Technology - 4. Physical Environment

"Spire City" © DigitalBlasphemy.com

Section 4 of our preliminary speculations about the influence on Alien technology: the alien's physical environment (planetary as well as the space environment).

Seems are obvious, and have been mentioned earlier in the preliminary discussions regarding physiology. From Alien Technology - 1. Biology/Physiology - Part II, take as an example,

a water world where the intelligent species has developed wholly as an underwater organism. Smell, light, and radio waves are not the most effective or efficient means of communication in water, due to the properties of water. But sound is a different matter - sound is a very effective means, which is why whales and dolphins, among others, are able to communicate over long distances (sometimes thousands of miles) via sound alone. Using electricity would be difficult, and so development in that area could be very slow.

Other environments would have strong influences on the course and development of alien technology - a planet with much greater gravity, and thicker atmosphere, would struggle more than we to have a rocket escape the planet's gravity well, and to survive the longer and more fiery reentry. On such a planet would Zeppelin type crafts make more sense, or be viable much longer on such a planet compared to Earth?

Or if the alien race lives on a planet with a highly elliptical orbit, or a greatly tilted planetary axis, such that weather conditions vary extremely throughout their year, they may very well be motivated to create technology to help them deal with mitigating the results of the extreme weather patterns, especially if they are a species that wants to expand its territory to cover as much of their planet as possible (life tends to expand to fill its environment as much as possible - life that evolves otherwise would soon end, to be usurped and replaced by life that does strive to expand).

And for aliens that live in a solar system that is more populated by hazardous asteroids than our own system (maybe, for instance, it doesn't have a Jupiter sized planet to clean out many of the asteroids), such that they suffer many more meteor hits on a regular basis than the Earth - such beings would definitely have as one of their priorities technology tools to help them locate, track, and deal with hazardous asteroids.

Of course a large water planet would have some added natural protection - meteor impacts into an ocean are not quite as devastating as the same meteors impacting on the rocky surface of a more Earth-like terrestrial planet. Also, if the planet has a thicker atmosphere, that would give greater protection.

And what of a planet that, for whatever reason, does not have the coal and oil or other such natural energy sources as the Earth? They would be driven to find other means for power to power their technologies, developing solar power sooner, for instance. It would most likely have a strong impact on their transportation technologies as well.

So as with the other categories, we need to sit down and carefully think about the different kinds of physical environments an alien race could grow up in, and we need to include in our contemplations all aspects of the physical environment, even what may, at first, seem insignificant. I think we sometimes forget just how much our environment shapes us, since we are born and raised in it.

Life on Water Worlds

"Artica" © DigitalBlasphemy.com

No, not the movie of the same name.

Some planets may very well be true water worlds - totally covered in water. Though some, like Gliese 581 C (a "super-earth" 50% larger than the Earth 20.5 light-years away) may have dense water - maybe a thin layer of liquid water on top of compressed water. What sort of life would arise there? Think about it - no dry land, or extremely rare dry land that is easily flooded by storms or tides. Life transitioning to land would not happen, at least not large roaming life which needs territory to grow and thrive on (digression: could high level stationary sentient life ever evolve, I wonder?).

On Earth, life developed limbs and walked out of the seas - large tracts of land allowed for evolution to proceed in that direction. On a planet covered with one giant ocean, that direction would be blocked, unless the poles were cold enough to keep up the continued production of ice floes - then there could be an evolutionary path for living on ice floes part or full-time. Otherwise, any evolutionary development of limbs would go in the direction of underwater ambulation. But how useful is underwater ambulation? As useful as fins on land? And so, over millenia, higher sentient life would evolve totally adapted to the oceans. I don't think they would have just fins - hard to build and use tools without some means of griping and manipulating the physical environment.

That is not to say intelligent life needs a means to physically manipulate the environment, but that the ability to manipulate the environment does allow for greater evolution and progress of the brain, or at least to make it much easier for it to happen.

Maybe on some water world planet, a species of sentient life has evolved that can not manipulate the environment, but they have survived for millenia and so have slowly evolved to be able to do high order abstract thinking - their art, culture, science, and theology would all be based on communication - their only tool left to them; they would manipulate the mental environment. Art would be, for those that communicate via sound, vocal music and oral literature. Science would be based largely on observation and mental experiments (of the kind that Einstein made famous, but that the Greeks did to an extent as well) since they could do little experimenting (some, probably, but not much). They would not less likely to physically explore space, as they would not be able to leave their planet (water is extremely heavy, especially compared to air, lifting a craft full of water out into space would be extremely difficult -albeit not impossible - to do. In addition, making space suits for exploration, especially that of dry surfaces, would be extremely problematic as well). Would they be more likely to become telepathic then? To astrally project themselves? Or is that too "newagey?"

For a large planet with several times greater gravity, a thick ocean may have "normal" water at the top, but definitely, for a thick ocean, water that would become denser quickly the deeper one went - water become plastic, or even solid. We have a slight inkling of that here on Earth - mountain climbers know the air gets thinner as they climb, it is a danger if ignored. For our water world aliens, something similar may be in play.

Depending upon their evolutionary track, if they evolved as deep sea creatures, rising up to the surface may be dangerous - especially if they can not work with tools to create devices to help them breath or deal with the pressure change. Even sea creatures on Earth have ranges - some that live closer to the surface can dive rather deep, but they don't live in the depths. Other deep living creatures tend to stay in the depths, only coming near or to the surface when they are sick or dying (like giant squid) - near the surface is not a friendly environment for them to linger in.

Another thought - would, after millenia, creatures evolve to be like our flying fish? Would the air be conquered there as it has long been here as well by flying creatures? They would have to be creatures that feel at home surrounded by oceans, who do not need land to survive. Probably most likely flying fish like creatures, though maybe one some planets, the flying fish make the evolutionary steps toward fish that fly more than they are fish, and develop lungs and end up spending their lives either floating on the surface (when resting, for instance) and flying.

There are some sea birds on Earth that can live far out at sea, and may spend much of their life out at sea. Such birds tend to glide or soar more than the powered flight. This is because they can take advantage of the wind deflected by waves, and or by ground effect which reduces drag.

Because of convergent evolution (where unrelated species tend to develop similar characteristics due to their sharing similar environments, and due to the fact that the same physical laws apply to all species in the same environment) we can make educated guesses that creatures on other planets will tend to try to be efficient in adapting to their environments just like Earth life. If deflected wind and the ground effect is still in effect on this alien water world, then flying creatures there will glide more than they would use powered flight since the latter uses more energy.

Would these fully pelagic sea bird like creatures be the ones to most likely to become tool makers? They would have, possibly, develop feet (webbed most likely), which could have an opposable digit to help them grip prey (like modern Earth birds) and which could eventually evolve to manipulate tools (as a previous blog entry has noted, some birds, crows most notably, are known to create and use tools, and may be as smart, or even smarter, than a chimpanzee).

Or would the creatures be more like flying fish, or half-bird/half-fish - able to live under water (maybe to nest and breed) as well as live on the water surface and fly over it (to more easily hunt for food - flying through air is faster than flying through water - less dense, less drag).

Though one drawback (to sentient beings) is that on a water planet it would be hard to work with metals - to melt, smelt, and other wise work with metal to create structures and devices that would allow them to eventually explore the stars. Mining ore would be more problematic as well. Water is heavier than air, more dense - it takes more energy to move through it, and probably more difficult to shore up tunnels (not only would they have the weight of the stone above, but the pressure of the water on top bearing down). Light has a harder time penetrating water than it does gaseous atmospheres (sound, however, could travel great distances under water). Working with electricity would be harder. Building telescopes to view the heavens would be harder (though maybe on a planet with rare land, a species that could tolerate the air for short periods could build telescopes on such land - or the avian species, which would have a higher ability to tolerate the air).

On a larger planet, covered with water, how would that affect territorial issues? Would such creatures tend to be more nomadic - especially if they never develop the ability to farm, there is no need to settle down and build cities. Are cities necessary for advancement? Do cities help speed up advancement of civilization, and if they do help (which it does seem like they did for humans), are they the only way? Could nomadic species find their own way to help quickly spur on advancements in civilization? Without natural barriers like mountains, oceans, ice fields, deserts, and large rivers are to humans, would their be less isolation between groups and thus a more "we are one" sort of sentiment develop? Or would groups still develop, some adapting to more colder regions, for instance? (but would this still, in the end, create fewer insulated, insular groups than is the case on Earth?) Would this create a species that would be less xenophobic?

What theology would exist for such creatures? For those on planets with rare land - would the inhospitable land be their version of hell? Or for deep dwelling sentient species, which can not bear being near the lower pressure regions in the upper regions of the sea, would the upper, more lighted, and more dynamic regions be more like hell and heaven more like the darker, heavier, and calmer pressured regions? Would they think all planets are ocean, and that heaven would be a calm ocean? They probably would have some tectonic activity - underwater volcanoes - as well as deep, dark trenches that could play roles in primitive theologies. And for the water bird sentient species, how would their primitive ancestors first think of the world, theologically (I suppose they would love the O.T. verses that describe God as a mother hen).

Two digressions:

1. Would a water world be less susceptible to extinction level events from meteor impacts (no dust to throw up into the air to create a long lasting year round winter that kills off the plant life, no cracking open part of the crust and letting out lava, etc)?

2. There is an article in DVICE.com about the Focus 21 France, a hovercraft prototype that would use the ground effect to achieve helicopter speeds. It would have to fly close to the water to take advantage of the ground effect (a height equal to twice the wingspan or less). I thought that maybe that is how water world sentient species would fly, at least for their earlier flights. Sort of like sub-orbital or low earth orbits for us.

References:

"Astronomers Find First Earth-like Planet in Habitable Zone." ESO. 25 April 2007. 9 December 2007. <http://www.eso.org/public/outreach/press-rel/pr-2007/pr-22-07.html>

White, Charlie. "Focus 21 France uses ground effect to zip above the waves" DVICE.com. 3 December 2007. 9 December 2007. <http://dvice.com/archives/2007/12/focus_21_france.php>

Sunset in a triple star system (Quicktime Mov)

This video hails from Caltech, the link is <mr.caltech.edu/media/trinary_sunset-low.mov>. I tried to find more information on this (if it was created for a real trinary, or triple, star system discovered), but to no avail. It is intriguing though - think of how many of Earth's cultures held the Sun as a center point to their theologies. It makes logical sense that for most primitive sentient cultures the sun, or suns, that their planet orbits would hold theological importance. Especially for systems where they experienced winters and summers due to the tilt of their planet and the accompanying change in light from their sun(s), or if in a more marked elliptical orbit than mother Earth, and the accompanying change in light from their sun(s).

If their planet was stable, in an extremely circular orbit and no noticeable tilt to their planet's axis, maybe other factors may step forward as central.

For instance, on a planet that was 100% covered by water (and there is some evidence such planets may not be all that rare), which was just barely within the extreme limit of the HZ, underwater volcanoes and volcanic vents, with their life giving warmth, may take center stage - the cool and distant light in the world beyond the water's edge a different deity (though since it is bright, and those that would swim to the surface would note its warmth, though cool compared to the vents, maybe it would still have some large role in their theology - the distant rising and falling volcanic god of the afterlife...).

Or for a planet where water was scarce (Dune anyone?), water may become the central deity of Good, and the sun the deity of evil. That is until they become a technological society - but even then, the gods may linger as analogies in new religions.

Or for sentient creatures that were nocturnal - the sun would have quite a different meaning to them than to us. They may even fear the light.

And so, what of a society on a moon circling a large gas giant which itself circles a trinary star system? Would the gas giant become the primary god, and the three light gods secondary? Or would they all share equal footing? Though a few other things to keep in mind is that for a habitable moon that is in phase lock with its parent gas giant, the night side would always face the gas giant, and the day side always face the star. What manner of mythologies could be told from such a stage?