What would a two week day/night cycle be like?

[Khyrindor]

I am working on a story in which life on the planet became uninhabitable (woah, that's a fun word), so its residents  moved to the two, conveniently habitable, moons in its orbit.

 

Long story short, I want to know what would happen to life if it was like our moon with its day/night cycle. For those who don't know, the moon is tidally locked onto the Earth (one side is always facing us), so its day/night cycle would be two weeks of night and two weeks of light in comparison to the sun. Since it isn't spinning, its cycle is happening because its orbit around the planet. If I haven't confused you, anyone know if life would be possible, or do I have to make the moons have to orbit faster so one side doesn't burn and the other freeze. Thank you. 

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles]

Astronomy isn't exactly my specialty, but I can say that the two weeks of night would grow steadily colder, while the two weeks of light would grow steadily warmer. It would depend on a number of factors whether or not the heat/cold were unbearable, but it's safe to say that the shifting temperatures would probably result in flora similar to that in the Sonoran Desert. Trees there are designed to absorb as much energy from the sun as possible, meaning there are trees with green trunks, trees with leaves all over them, and of course cacti. The two week cycles would also impact the weather, though I'd do some research into Earth meteorology to extrapolate exactly how. Some research on plants and animals of the Sonoran Desert would probably also be useful, because I imagine the landscape of this moon would closely resemble the Sonoran.

Edited November 1, 2014 by TwiLyghtSansSparkles

[Kobold King]

I am similarly not an astronomer--or anyone with a particularly well-informed opinion, for that matter. I'd recommend using Google to verify anything I state before, since I have been known to be incorrect on speculative planetological matters. I have been proven wrong quite often, in fact.

 

That said, here are my thoughts on the United Moons of Khyrindoria.

 

 

Our own Earth would suffer from the same burning and freezing as the Moon were it not for the quality of our atmosphere. Earth's atmosphere is sufficient to insulate the planet, keeping the global temperature at a relative constant. At night the atmosphere keeps heat from dissipating into space, while during the day sunlight is blocked from irradiating the planet's surface.

 

Earth's atmosphere is ideally suited for our 24-hour day cycle. In the case of your moons, a thicker atmosphere might be required to keep the global temperatures at a habitable constant.

 

What consequences would the thicker atmospheres have on your little moons? On this, I am not quite certain. This is not my area of expertise. Certainly there would be substantial effects on the weather--for instance, denser air takes greater amounts of force to move, which means that strong winds would be less common but more powerful than on Earth.

 

One interesting quirk of dense atmospheres is the effect they would have on life during the early stages of evolution. On our own Earth, insects and other small invertebrates are prevented from growing beyond a certain size due to their limited respiratory systems. The way insects breathe is inefficient; they are incapable of drawing as much oxygen from the air as vertebrates. In Earth's thin atmosphere, this means that invertebrates have never been able to support bodies much larger than a small bird. However, insects that evolved submersed in a thick cloud of easily accessible oxygen would not face such a severe limit. These invertebrates would most likely have outcompeted vertebrates during the early stages of evolution, leading to biospheres dominated by what we would call arthropods.

 

Better yet, these arthropods would be able to take to the skies much more readily than our own feeble dragonflies. In a thicker atmosphere, it would be easier for flying animals to generate lift. I'd expect to see these cloudy skies ruled by an assortment of large gliding animals. If the atmospheres are thick and rich enough, the skies of Khyrindoria could be just as biologically diverse as Earth's oceans.

[king of nowhere]

It's a bit difficult to say whether life would be possible, because we don't really know how far life can adapt.

Microbial life, certainly. there are bacteria everywhere and they can thrive in the most disparate conditions. there are some in the upper atmosphere at 15-20 km of altitude, some are several kilometers below ground and use the radioactive decay of uranium to power their photosynthesis... so, bacteria can certainly live there.

As for multicellular life, the only problem I see is that two weeks of day and two weeks of night would make for huge thermal excursions. Fish could certainly live in the oceans, because the water temperature wouldn't change much. As for animals outside, they must be adapted to strong temperature changes. maybe camels could thrive there. Other animals could burrow into the ground during the night and only go out during the day, or viceversa. mammals may use something like whale blubber, an outer layer of fat full of veins that can work as insulation when the blood vessels are contracted, or as heat exchanger when the vessels are dilatated. Insects have little capability to survive the cold, but they may have easily adopted a life cycle where they pupate for the night. So, yeah, life could probably be fine, as long as it is adapted to it.

 

By the way, since it appears that you're striving for scientific accuracy, there's a detail you may have forgot: a planet needs enough gravitational pull to have an atmosphere, or the gas will just diffuse into the space over time; the lighter the gas, the more gravity is needed to keep it. That's what happened on mars, it didn't have enough gravity to keep water vapor, so its ocean were graduallly lost in space over millions of years. The moon don't have enough gravity for any kind of atmosphere (I suppose it could retain uranium hexafluoride, if it was found in nature). Anyway, in order to have liquid water, a celestial body needs a gravity that is at least half that of our earth, maybe two thirds. So those satellites need to be very big, or very dense.

[Khyrindor]

Thank you all for your input. Kobold, I especially like the idea of the flying creatures.

 

 By the way, since it appears that you're striving for scientific accuracy, there's a detail you may have forgot: a planet needs enough gravitational pull to have an atmosphere, or the gas will just diffuse into the space over time; the lighter the gas, the more gravity is needed to keep it. That's what happened on mars, it didn't have enough gravity to keep water vapor, so its ocean were graduallly lost in space over millions of years. The moon don't have enough gravity for any kind of atmosphere (I suppose it could retain uranium hexafluoride, if it was found in nature). Anyway, in order to have liquid water, a celestial body needs a gravity that is at least half that of our earth, maybe two thirds. So those satellites need to be very big, or very dense.

 

I was already thinking that their home planet was larger than earth by about 15%-20%, and that the moons were at the very least 50% of Earth's size. The moving between planets happens 300 years prior to the story so any adaptation is only referred to as history. Although I haven't looked into planet sizes very much as of yet. Do you know if the moons would be too big for their planet, or if the planet is too big for its position in the solar system? (Which is, habitable zone of a slightly larger and older star, 5th planet from it, last before the asteroid belt.)

 

Additional information may be needed. The moons are close to the same size as each other, one may be about 10% larger. The atmospheres were made up of the same stuff as their homeworld which is to say the same as ours since I don't particularly want to make little green men, presumably because they came from the same place. The people when they fled to the moons were maybe 100 years more advanced than we are, and did not have hyperspace or terraforming technologies. Gravity to me wouldn't be too terribly difficult to adapt when you consider if they had to breathe different air.

 

So assuming life is possible and they adapted, would the moons have to spin, or just rotate around the planet faster. If they are tidally locked, what would that mean for their oceans? Would the moons affect each others' oceans?

[Aleksiel]

It's a really cool idea I'll try to help you with what I know, but I am not a specialist. 

 

I'm not sure if a moon of 50% size of the Earth could have the gravity to keep the atmosphere from escaping unless it's mass is similar, but that'll make it twice as dense as the Earth, which also means more heavy elements, and I don't know how that will change the soil and everything else. 

 

You should also check whether or not these moons would eventually crash into the planet because of the gravity and what's the stable orbit for them. Unfortunately, I don't know how this should be calculated.

 

Whether or not the moon is habitabal will also depend on how far from the star it is and what kind of star your solar system has. Google 'habitabal zone' to get the right equations.

 

I agree a thicker atmosphere will be needed and that will mean higher pressure, so to get an idea how life adapts to this take a look at some sea creatures that live under similar pressure as the one your moon will have.

 

To have a life-friendly temperature you also should consider the albedo of the moon; I recommend to have lots of water (it'll store heat for the sunny weeks and get cooler slower) and forests to keep it low. If you have snow, it'll reflect the light in the sunny weeks and get very cold very fast during the two week night, so you risk the moon freezing. If the atmosphere has more CO₂ (very active volcanoes could explain this), then you could use it for better greenhouse effect that'll keep the moon warmer and you'll have more and possibly larger plants (good for the many forests I recommend), although these two weeks without sunlight... Plants must adapt to that somehow, but I have no suggestions how, sorry.  

 

Consider consulting with the department of physics and astronomy in a local university, they should be able to help you.

[Khyrindor]

I could always shorten the time to like 5 days of each instead of 2 weeks. It would make it more possible, but still a challenge. I like the ideas of the volcanoes and more trees, thank you. The 2 weeks was just an example of our moon, I could always mess with the orbit. All of this will be described in world so its more just for me to know. Before too long the moons are knocked out of their orbit anyway (I already figured out how, I assure you). If I make the sun a bit bigger, would it be able to account for having such a large planet with large moons in its habitable zone?

[king of nowhere]

50% the mass of earth with the samme density should still be enough to retain water, barely. a higher density for the moons could be postulated, but would be difficutl to justify: earth is already very dense (the denser planet in the solarr system by a fair margin) because it has a big iron nucleus. and iron is the most stable nuclide, so it is very abundant  in the universe. to be significatively denser than our planet, a nucleus of lead would be required, but lead isn't so common. Anyway, 50% the size of earth should be fine.

 

Now, for orbital stablity: this is a case of three body problem, and as such it cannot be solved analitically except for some special cases. So there would be no way to predicct orbital stability; one could only make the calculation for as far ahead in time as his computer would allow. if there was only one moon there would be no problem, they could be twin planets orbiting around their baricentrum like pluto and charon. With a third one however the whole of it becomes quite unstable. I think there are some initial conditions that would make the system stable for at least a few billions years, even if I have no idea how to calculate which one they could be, but I'm not sure.

Also, since the moons are almost half the size of the planet, speaking of planet and moons orbiting around it isn't correct. it can be said thaat a moon rotates around a planet only if the moon is small enough that it has negligible influence on the planet itself. instead, there are three bodies rotating aroundd their common baricentrum in quite a complex way.

Thinking about it, maybe one of those stable conditions would be having planet+moon 1 very close to each other, and moon 2 much farther and rotating around the other two bodies. that would be relatively stable - I would bet good money it could last centuries. billions of years, ccan't say.

 

As for the rest, I don''t think there should be any problem. we don't know the size cap for a rocky planet, but it ought to have space for something at least moderately bigger than earth. twin planets would be rare but not uncommon, triplets like this would be exceptional but could exist. Given the size of the moons, the tides should be very big, and a nightmare to predict, but that's something that can be worked around. Maybe a port city is on a rise 30 meters above sea level and ships could be launched only on high tide.

[Khyrindor]

So if I go the way of moon one being quite close, what would that moon's day/night cycle be like?

[king of nowhere]

So if I go the way of moon one being quite close, what would that moon's day/night cycle be like?

it depends. how close they are, how fast they are spinning, if they are tidally locked, their plane of rotation, and if their plane of rotation was also spinning. let's make some examples:

 

1) the two planets are tidally locked, and the plane of their orbit is the same as the orbit around the star: then the moon will be visible only on one side of the planet, and it will cause a solar eclypse every day, as the moon will be much greater in the sky than our own moon. on the moon that will be more dramatic, since the planet is bigger: there will be some places on the surface that are shielded from the sun for a relatively long time, possibly leading to the formation of a cold pole in the point closer to the planet (nothing too dramatic, it would still get light at morning and afternoon).

no tides, except for those caused by the second moon, because the twin planets are standing still respective to each other (the planets would be slightly eliptical because of their gravitational pull, and water will be spreadd accordingly, but it won't move - it's like the tide is frozen forever into a specific place).

 

2) planets tidally locked, orbiting in a plane perpendicular to their orbit around the star: in that case, the planets would get light at the poles, not at the equator. But within a full year, as th planets circle around the star, both poles would be illuminated at intervals. So virtually the day-night cycle would be one day lasting a full year, at the poles, while at the equator it would always be dusk, with the sun slowly moving around the horizon. The twin planet would be seen at the horizon from the poles, and at the top  from the equator, and would always be like a half moon. there would be strong seasonal temperature variations between the poles.

 

3) planets tidally locked, the plane of their orbit shifts: the planets are going form situation 1 to 2 passing through everything in beteen. this is too much of a mess for me to want to figure out. the exact details would depend on the exact times of all those movements.

 

4) like 3, but not tidally locked: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's even more of a mess. In this cases there would be tides, and very strong ones.

 

In all of this, there would be tidal influences of the second moon - although, if that one is further away, the effect should be relatively minor.

[Khyrindor]

Thanks, you've been a great help. I like the first option. One more question: If there were a planet somewhat close to this one, large enough to move the moons a little further away from the planet every time it made an orbit, what kind of effects would it always have had on them and the planet. For the story to work, the moons need to be knocked out of their orbit by another massive object with its own gravity. Would it just be easier to have an asteroid, or something else entirely?

[king of nowhere]

well, another planet of that star passing close and perturbing the orbit would be highly unlikely as far as I know. after a solar system is formed, all the planets reach some kind of gravitational balance so that they are stable for long periods; for example, pluto and neptune intersects their orbits, but they are locked into a periodic motion where neptune makes 3 revolutions in the exact time pluto makes 2, and that prevents those two from ever coming too close; if that hadn't been the case, pluto's orbit would have been messed up and it would not be where it is now. there are plenty of bodies who have similar syncronous motions to avoid interfering with each other. those who don't reach such an equilibrium are knocked out of position and either clashes against some other planet, or are ejected from the system. That happens pretty soon, a few hundred millions years, and while that happens there are asteroids and even planetoids colliding all the time, so life cannot develop until most of the space bodies has been cleared out or put into a stable orbit (you can read the hystory of our solar system on wikipedia to get an idea; in fact, wikipedia is my main source for everything I posted here. While I would not use it for scientific research, I find it is the perfect tool to get a general culture).

So, the idea that the moons are knocked out by another planet in the same system goes against our understanding of planetary dinamycs. Even if it were to happen, because orbits change a bit with time, it would be a gradual, exxtremely long process. But fear not, there are a few ways around it.

The first is the rogue planet, which is a planet without a star. either it formed around a star but got knocked out in the first turbulent phase of its life, or it formed form a dust cloud too small to make a star. We know little about them, because without a star to illuminate them we can only see them by chance when they pass in front of another star, but estimates give them as pretty common. At any time, one of them could wander into the solar system, and with very little forewarning, since we would not see it until the sun would start illuminating it enough. The chances of it colliding with anything are small, and the most likely targets are the gas giants anyway; the chances of a melancholia scenario would be extremely small. BUt even if such a planet do not impact with anything, its gravitational influence will disturb the delicate equilibria of the system. it could misplace a planet's orbit, and that could in turn affect other orbits... if a gas giant rogue planet were to pass relatively close to your system, it would give it a gravitational slingshot effect. as the slingshot effect would depend strongly on where exactly each body is and how it is moving compared to the rogue planet, I can totally see as a plausible scenario that the planet and the two moons are each thrown in different directions. You can see gravitational slingshot on wikipedia to get a better idea on how it works.

The second scenario to make it happen is the asteroid/planetoid. Those are relatively common in the solar system (the bigger bodies in the asteroid belt, pluto, erith, others I don't know, and several others are estimated to exist). They are in a stable orbit, but just like comets are appearing every once in a while because there are a lot of them in the outer regions and sometimes one of them is displaced by small gravitational effect, so a bigger comet or a small planetoid could come in the inner region of your star. Again, the main likelyhood is that the gas giants would capture it, but it is not impossible that it would reach the inner planets. such a body would not have enough gravity to perturb your planet very much, but it could hit your main planet with enough force to knock it out of orbit. As the moons are gravitationally bound to the planet, they would follow, but there probably is some unlikely-but-possible mechanic that would cause the two moons to leave the planet.

Note: to significantly alter the orbit of the planet, a very big colliding body would be needed; we're talking about several hundreds, possibly thousands kilometers of diameter. that impact would completely annihilate all life on the planet, except maybe for some of those bacteria that live deep underground on the other side of the planet. maybe. the heat of the impact would turn the planet into a ball of molten rock, the oceans would evaporate. the effect on the closer moon would be at least akin to an atomic bomb exploding in high atmosphere, everywhere at once. and plenty of debris (some several kilometers in diameter) would be fling into space, and many of them would hit the moons and deal lots of damage. If you don't want your moons to suffer that, that's probably not a good option.

A softer variation of the second scenario is that the planetoid gets captured by your system gravity, but then the fourth body will alter the delicate equilibria and will cause the two previous moons to be ejected. a bit difficult to achieve if we established that one of them is very close to the planet, but it may be possible. You'd need an astrophysic making calculations to tell for sure if it can happen or not.

Notice how the various scenarios are not mutually exclusive: a rogue planet passing in the outer reaches of the system could perturb the orbit of a planetoid that was there, sending it towards the inner reaches of your system, where it gets captured by the planet's gravity, disturbs the system causing the moons to move farther from the planet as it gets closer in an unstable orbit, and finally crashes on the planet once the moons are already relatively far.

 

I have to day, however, that according to my knowledge the rogue planet gravity slingshot would be the most plausible explanation for how a moon got quickly separated from the planet. Remember, my knowledge on the subject comes from extrapolating conclusions based on what I remember from rreading wikipedia articles, so I cannot guarantee a 100% accuracy. On the plus side, most of that stuff would require incredibly complex mathematical models to be proved either way, so I doubt anyone will be able to do any debunking.

[Khyrindor]

You seem to put a lot of time into helping me with this. Thank you immensely. I too like the idea of a rogue planet. I could have one moon discover that it is coming close, and know that it could slingshot them away, but not the other moon. This is far into the future so I don't see a problem with them trying to blow up the planet in order to try and cancel out the effect of the rogue planet's gravity, they think maybe instead of being flung into space, they would latch onto the other moon's gravity and just get a different orbit. Obviously they fail and they end up BOTH flung into space. I've started to build a storyline already, leaving out the parts that I didn't know about. I will work this out tomorrow. Again, thanks so much for your help.

[king of nowhere]

Oh, no problem, I have a deep personal interest for most stuff concerning space, and I'm enjoying the chance of discussing about it.

Now, if you want them to blow up the planet, keep in mind a few details

1) a planet exploding would generate a huge amount of debris and result in vast meteor fall on its moons. However, if they have the technology to blow up a whole planet (which requires blowing it so hard that the pieces won't just fall back into place because of gravity) then they must have the technology to set up a space shield to also destroy or deflect any incoming fragment of the planet that may hit them.

2) the star would still exert its gravitational influence on the two moons. however, the angolar momentum they had when rotating around the planet would be converted into kinetical energy, causing them to settle on another orbit or to be expelled from the system (if that energy is higher than the star's escape energy). there is also a difficult to predict effect after destroying the planet, because its fragments will still be generating gravity that will influence the moons for at least a few days - until they are far away enough.

So, it is predictable enough that a very advanced civilization may try it as a last resort to get away from the path of a colliding gas giant, but messy enough that it could still go wrong.  I like it.

[Khyrindor]

Plus the moons are at war 

[Andrew C]

A planet being destroyed is not something you want to be anywhere near. It's going to make a mess and probably release enough heat to destroy all life on the moons.

 

As for other factors in your three body environment - the planet (when it was inhabited) would have had absolutely incredible tides. 14 day rotation orbits means the moons are closer than Earth's moon, and they are much heavier. It would not surprise me if the planet was constantly pounded by what we Earthlings would call tsunamis. This is going to cause erosion of continents, so you'd either need a lot of volcanism to counteract this, or some other solution.

[Khyrindor]

Will I have to rethink everything, or is the planet destruction still feasible?

[king of nowhere]

Will I have to rethink everything, or is the planet destruction still feasible?

Depends on the technology level they have. I suppose if they have the power to annihilate a planet they can also protect themselves from the heat of the explosion and form the massive rain of debris - several of which will be planetoid-size. Personally, my suspension of disbelief could accept it, if it is reasonably explained. if it was established that the inner moon had orbital defences capable of turning a planetoid to dust on short notice, or maybe a deflector shield capable of withstanding energies billions of times greater than the tsar bomba, then it would be realistic for them to survive such a cataclismic event up close.

Of course you need then to be consistent. if the two moons are at war, and both have weapons capable of annihilating a planet, you have to explain why they haven't used those against each other, for example.

[stormvisions]

Some totally random ideas.

 

If the moon is tidally locked then maybe all life could live on a range of mountains at the dividing line between the two halves of the moon. The plains alternately boil and freeze every two weeks, but snow is deposited as the water boils off and endures on these 'fringe mountains' allowing life a precarious existence.  Perhaps there are valleys, or underground caverns where the water drips down and survives in this area?

 

Something like this (so when one side is dark, the other is light with the mountains at the dividing line)

 

 

You might also have animal/plants, similar to ocean corals that house symbiotic algae without which they could not survive. These creatures could migrate back and forth with the change as a sort of moving forest/herd/ambulatory greenhouses.

 

Plants can also contain silica (like horsetail) and silica has a very high melting point. So perhaps there could be a group of plants with lots of silica that formed a sort of interlocking forest and the interlocking leaves block enough of the heat to allow some secondary plants to grow beneath their protective canopy. The plants could be glass like and brittle during the cold cycle to make it challenging and breaking or collapsing a section of the giant plants would allow the extreme weather in with the consequences or burns or freezes.

Edited December 11, 2014 by stormweasel

[king of nowhere]

Some totally random ideas.

 

If the moon is tidally locked then maybe all life could live on a range of mountains at the dividing line between the two halves of the moon. The plains alternately boil and freeze every two weeks, but snow is deposited as the water boils off and endures on these 'fringe mountains' allowing life a precarious existence.  Perhaps there are valleys, or underground caverns where the water drips down and survives in this area?

 

Something like this (so when one side is dark, the other is light with the mountains at the dividing line)

 

mnt1.jpg

 

You might also have animal/plants, similar to ocean corals that house symbiotic algae without which they could not survive. These creatures could migrate back and forth with the change as a sort of moving forest/herd/ambulatory greenhouses.

 

Plants can also contain silica (like horsetail) and silica has a very high melting point. So perhaps there could be a group of plants with lots of silica that formed a sort of interlocking forest and the interlocking leaves block enough of the heat to allow some secondary plants to grow beneath their protective canopy. The plants could be glass like and brittle during the cold cycle to make it challenging and breaking or collapsing a section of the giant plants would allow the extreme weather in with the consequences or burns or freezes.

that I don't think would work

1) tidaly locked moon: the night of two days would not be enough to freeze the planet. our own polar regions are in the dark for six months, but atmospheric circulation still brings enough hot air there. Temperature should remain in the +50/-20 region.

 

2) living creatures with high melting point: the problem is not in the metling point of silica, the problem is that life need to be based on organic molecules, and organic molecules are too complex to be thermally stable. DNA itself at 90 degrees starts breaking down in a multitude of ways - the phosphate backbone get hydrolized, the N-glycosidic bond gets broken, the bases all have some kind of breakdown. life can exist in thermal vents in the deep ocean at well above 100 degrees, but not much more. So, there would be no direct advantage from having silica in plants. thermal reesistance up to 100 degrees iss achieved by optimizing proteins to work at that temperature, selecting all biological molecules for thermal stability, selecting a DNA poor of A-T pairs (which are the more labile) and expressing a lot of repairing proteins to continually fix up all the damage done by the temperature. Thermal resistance much above that point cannot be achieved, certainly not with refractary materials.

[stormvisions]

It sounds like you would know better than I. Would a plant that secreted silica as a clear 'shell' similar to corraline algaes or even diatoms be protected enough from the heat for it to survive? What about the reflective properties of silica, would that further reduce the heat being absorbed by the more delicate life within?

Edited December 12, 2014 by stormweasel

[king of nowhere]

That I'm not sure of. However, our planet's crust is like 40% silica, and we have plenty of organisms that live in harsh wheather, and none of them is using silica for heat protection (I think some crustaceans or something use silica on their shells, but not sure; and silicon is used in some minor biological process, but we don't know how; we just know that if we take away all silicon from an animal's food it will become ill). I'd think if there was a particular benefit to useing silica something would have adapted to do it.

In general, heat protection is achieved in two ways: the first is insulation. so you'd want something with low thermal conductance. fat, wood, hair, feathers, all that kind of stuff. the second is active cooling: since nature don't have refriigerators, it uses water evaporation to get rid of heat, like sweating. that requires lots of water, and desert creatures cannot use it and are reduced to adapting to surviving a higher body temperature, but if there was that kind of day/night cycle I'd guess rain would be abundant: when on the two-week day it becomes very hot plenty of water evaporates from the ocean, and when it cools again it will all fall as rain or snow. So plants there should have access to plenty of water to keeep cool by transpiration.

They also would probably be pine-like, with needles for leaves, because they would have to resist extreme temperature differences,  and I doubt they can afford to shed leaves and grow them back every forthnight. but who knows, maybe evolution could provide a leave that can go from 50 to -20 degress in a few days without dieing if there was a need for it.

[stormvisions]

Thanks for the information. Fascinating ideas.

 

Just some more randomness in response but I use to breed fish including some annual kiilifish. Some of those could go from hatching to breeding in as little as 3 weeks as an evolutionary response to their environment. In fact the hatchlings from one day were often big enough to eat the hatchlings from the next day so I would have to have a new jar for each day.

 

I also raised artemia to feed a lot of small fish and their cysts are extremely resistant to environment. Assuming what I read is accurate they can take temperatures of -310 Farenheit among other things. If you look up cryptobiosis this might offer an interesting model for the survivability of some life - with mention of waterbear's for example being chilled to -457 degrees farenheit. In theory these critters can live almost indefinetly in this state.

 

One other interesting tidbit from my meandering mind is http://nautil.us/issue/16/nothingness/zombie-sponge-reefs-are-lurking-at-the-bottom-of-the-sea apparently reefs made of these 'glass sponges (which use silica) had dissapeared for a long time (about 40 million years) due possibly to not enough dissolved silica in the water caused by competing organisms like diatoms. Now they are reappearing and what I found interesting is that the larvae found and attached to the silicia skeltons left behind by those ancient sponges. This makes me wonder at the possibility of similar life, leaving behind a framework of silica (or another substance), that new life reattaches to and each generation builds it a tiny bit - similar to a stalactites growth - so that over time a life sustaining latticework could be grown.

 

I know it is a stretch but just wanted to throw out some ideas.

Edited December 13, 2014 by stormweasel

[king of nowhere]

well, my concern about shedding the leaves at every night was the energy cost of it; i wasn't sure a plant could afford it. but thinking about it, there are several plants that are capable of soubling their mass within a few days in favorable conditions, so I guess a leaf only takes a day or two to repay its cost.

as for organisms surviving freezing, several small animals can, and seeds of course, but I don't know of any big one with that capability. On the other hand, life is amazing. Life thrives wherever it founds favorable conditions, and if the conditions aren't favorable it thrives anyway. So I wouldn't be too surprised if that was possible.

As for organisms living in colonies on silica skeletons, that's practically what coral reefs do. except that coral uses calcium carbonate. there's no reason it could not use silica in a different environment.

[stormvisions]

Similar to calcareous corals but the difference is that corals build an external housing and the polyp lives within. The new generation builds on top of the empty 'housing.' The glass sponges have an internal silica skelton. In a way it is like the 'kandra' from Mistborn - the creature grows/internalizes the 'bones' of the previous generation (if I understand what I read right). It is amazing that they located the 'bones' of 40 million year old glass reefs to colonize. They also transfer electrical impules unusually fast and supposedly are eternal or live 15,000-23,000 years depending on what you read. Anyway I probably went a little too far down the rabbit hole on this.

Edited December 16, 2014 by stormweasel