"'PLUTINOS, Mr. Rico, BUNCHES OF THEM!'" Topic

I suspect the IAU in their next meeting is going to have to 're-revise' their nomenclature for what represents a 'planet'…whether it's a CLASSIC, DWARF, PLUTINO, CUBEWANO, Trans Neptunian Object, Outer Belt Object, Scattered Disk Object, Extended Scattered Disk Object, Kuiper Belt Object…etc..and that's before we even get to the EDGE of the 'Oort cloud' where there may be earth and mars-sized 'planetary bodies' in the THOUSANDS???

Here's the lastest list…(which was just updated in DECEMBER of this year!)

link

My point?

Well, if you're looking for 'pulp/sf fodder'…there's a lot of 'real estate' out there….and not all just 'ice-cubes' or dirty snowballs. Some may have been more 'earth-like'/Mars-like…(such as Ceres might YET turn out to be) in that LIFE could have started there???? before being deep-frozen…

Sedna for example…the most 'extreme' TNO goes from about 75 AU..(one AU is 93 million miles/distance from earth to sun) out to over 10,000 AU…(still short of Oort cloud boundry! and will reach closest part of orbit (perihelion about 2075…or is that 2175…before the long trip out into the dark…(wow…maybe that WAS the 'planet X' from the sf movie, 'the man from planet X!'…and they missed their chance to make the jump to a 'warmer' world????)

Maybe it was something like Space:1999 where there was a 'war' in the early solar system and planet 5 and 6, (orbiting opposite sides of the sun ala' Journey to the Far Side of the Sun/aka 'Doppelganger')…managed to blow one up and the other got thrown out of the ballpark in a long-period eliptical orbit????

Maybe there are 'intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic looking enviously' at our world from the distant, cold reaches of the solar system….(War of the Worlds?)

Or maybe one of them is really 'MONGO' (Hail, MING!)

Or the 'lost/dying world(s)' the GREY ALIENS…whose planets started freezing when the early sun 'settled down' from it's start-up…(the inner planets would have cooled last???

Maybe there are naturally INORGANIC lifeforms…who rely on cosmic rays and superconducting temperatures to live…and they think anything above almost absolute zero is HADES???

The point is…the IAU is going to have to 'refigure' some of this stuff out, as they/scientists find even more 'worlds' out there in our own solar system…(900 planets anyone???)…and there are resources there…on site that our technology very shortly, should be able to use…(fusion based)…so that the solar system could become the next 'Oklahoma Land Rush'…

The question then becomes…what if something OUT there doensn't want us on THEIR 'turf'…..(woah, Green Slime anyone…all it needed was to be closer to the SUN to thrive…it barely was surviving where it was!)

You don't have to 'invent' these worlds…they are already OUT there…and we've already seen 'cyrovolcanism' on a moon of SATURN…so we know that liquids from Methan clouds, rains, seas on TITAN to saltwater from Encedaedalus exist THAT far out from the sun…

So….?

'Not only is the Universe Stranger than we imagine, it's stranger than we CAN imagine!'

'Flash, Ahh-aaaaaaahhhhh!

Sgt DWW-btod and starry eye-stalked at the wonder of it all!

Quit trying to butter up our Imperial Mongo Overlords.
Ming was bought off years ago with STTNG and STDS9 complete series boxed sets on Blu-Ray.

Point well made David!

I remember in the Lensmans series by E.E. Doc Smith, there was a sentient creature on Pluto that was like an energy molecule ameoba.

I think it was either First Lensman or Galactic Patrol (1950). What really captured my imagination was that the author really thought 'outside the box' and presented creatures that were representative of the conditions prevalent within their own planetary environment.

This being on pluto was even more convincing because despite the fact that the Lensmen used artificial telephathy to communicate the being could not fully communicate some words/concepts into the human consciousness because there simply was no understanding on behalf of the Earth man of these concepts – in part due to competely alien biology.

Those books taught me

1) Do not be constrained by carbon based science.

2) Do not believe that everything must be bound by the arrogance of human science (or limitations of technology).

3) Even when we do reach the stars, even when our scientists know everything they can know from Earth based science,there will still be alien concepts that remain completely and utterly alien.

Great thread!

Cheers
Mark

"Maybe there are naturally INORGANIC lifeforms…who rely on cosmic rays and superconducting temperatures to live…and they think anything above almost absolute zero is HADES???"

Indeed – for most of this century the viruses where considered a complex form of chemistry rather than a lifeform, and even now there are arguments whether they are actually alive in the classic sense.

Ummm . . . Mark, much as I admit as a scientist that we never know many things for sure, if something exists it is undersatndable in some way. Even the concepts of Palianian life where explainable in part once their four-dimensioanl nature was grasped, though the 'concept' of being four-dimensional was never well accepted by human minds even when 'en rapport'.

I will leave this discussion with a couple of quotes, one of which I don't entirely agree with, but is worth sharing – " (Aliens) will be much beyond what we can imagine . . . There are creatures right on Earth that are absolutely amazing, and all the aliens are already here if you look at a small enough scale or under the ocean. " (James Cameron). And from a French biologist whose name escapes momentarily – " Life on other planets will, due to the physical laws of the universe, consist of familiar parts in very unfamiliar combinations."

I read something from the Planetary Society from 2007, where they think 'Charon'…(Pluto's 'sister' planet/moon) was showing signs of ammonia-water crystals on the surface from some measurements they'd made? That could imply like on other 'moons' that 'gravitational' heating…(the push and pull of Pluto and Charon on each other)…might be a source of 'cyrovolcanism' even THAT far out from the sun…as otherwise there would be no 'replacement' mechanism for the materials venting into space or being changed by solar/cosmic rays into something else.

Putting it simply…if moons of Saturn and even Pluto can have 'liquid water' (and other chemistry) beneath the surface…there has to be a form of 'energy' to keep it going. IF there is liquid water, even with other chemicals in it, and energy…then some advanced chemistry…or biochemistry is feasible…

We won't know until we get 'out there' and it may be just some very warm (compared to space!) salt-water with interesting 'contaminants' or other chemicals dissolved in it…

But life on Earth and possibly Mars…started in the oceans…salt-water oceans??? before there was even an 'atmophere' as we know it today.

Don't know if we'll find 'Moon Maidens of Charon' living under the frozen surface of Pluto's co-orbital, but where there is liquid water, energy and other chemicals…there is the potential for life as we might know or recognize it…maybe like was said above…'familar parts in unfamiliar combinations'…but to scifi folks…that's nothing 'new'….

On a BIGGER scale though….IF we find conditions for life, and examples of life, past or present…besides the earth, with all it's own 'extremophiles'…and traces of it on the 900 or so possible 'bodies' in our 'local' solar system…how much more likely is it that there are worlds without number out there with 'life' of some kind…????

Kinda 'cool' eh???

I still wanna see the LAVA MONSTERS like Space Ghost fought on the 'surface' of Jupiter….only on one of those planets where it circles it's sun in 4 days, has 6000 mph winds from sunny side to dark side and rains liquid iron????

Bring your nutronium umbrella!

Slish!
Sgt DWW-btod

Trans-Neptunian Objects?

I LOVE those guys! The way they play Carol of the Bells…

I'll get me coat.

Resurrecting this thread momentarily. . .

The Kepler probe has indeed found water ice on Pluto as well as a lot of complex molecules, so a Plutonian life form is *still* not to be ruled out.

Very disappointed though that, among the Classical and Lovecraftian names for the features on its landscape, Pluto has nowhere named for Nadreck :( Then again, he'd have been to humble to accept the honor . . . :D

Nobody has even mentioned the supposed Neptune-sized Planet 9. However--a truly great science fiction book on all that real estate and the civilization that goes with it (with lots of pulp possibilities) is Lockstep, by Karl Schroeder link