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In this weekly serial , Life ’s Little Mysteries fink the plausibleness of pop science fiction concepts . Warning : Some coddler ahead !
teller of nature show often speak of Earth as a " living satellite . " To an extent , the metaphor is true : biologic existence do indeed float , crawl and fly through our world ’s upmost layer of ocean , land and sky . Plant life history covers much of the Earth , and bacteria and viruses perfuse its dirt , pee and even atmosphere .
But all that is still a far war cry from the literally living , conscious planets that make appearances in many sci - fi and phantasy stories . Take Mogo in the " Green Lantern " DC Comics serial publication , for example . This erratic entity can convert its climate and rise foliage in desire shape on its aerofoil at will .
Or consider Pandora from the 2009 film " Avatar . " The flora and fauna on this plush moon have evolved tentaclelike organs that enable them to neurally interconnect with each other . A world - span consciousness exists , with Pandora ’s trillion interconnect trees act like cells in a prodigious brain , dwarfing our mind ’s 100 billion neuron .
Could anything like these far - out scenarios fare to be ? Creative writer surely call up so – just hold back out the recollective lean on Wikipedia of " fictitious living planets . "
Yet the development of a satellite - scale being look to be an utmost long shot . found on the chemistry and behavior of life and nonlife , do n’t bet on Mogo or Pandora , scientists say .
" The agency evolution works , I ca n’t see it go on , " said Peter Ward , a professor of paleontology at the University of Washington .
Megafauna
planet get along together bit by scrap from the gas and dust that border newly forming stars . Based on what we have learned from front at oursolar systemand beyond , huge agglomerations of rock , liquidness and gas held together by graveness will not reverberate forth into ego - aware consciousness . [ A Field Guide to Alien Planets ]
In one erratic case we know of — Earth — complex surface chemistrydid finally led to ego - replicating , information - carrying speck that we deem " life . "
That microscopic life over the track of 4 billion years of organic evolution has grown to gigantic proportion , such as the puritanic whale andsequoia Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree . The biggest exclusive organism ever known is a giant mass ofArmillaria ostoyaefungus sprawling across three square miles under a forest in Oregon .
Still , these biological effort are pipsqueaks compared to even a small moon .
" We have to use Earth ’s history as a pathfinder , " say Ward , wherein the idea of satellite - canvass organisms , let alone sentient I , " falls aside to scientific testing . "
Brain run out
A central understanding is physiology . Though vast , that Oregonian fungus lacks neural tissue , which is the wellhead of the perceptual processing of data . " Intelligence comes from boldness cell , " Ward pointed out .
Creatures lacking even mere nervous scheme , such as amoebas , can still expose a across-the-board range of stimulus - response deportment . But it takes big brains and highly developed nervous systems to begin exhibiting intelligence .
Those smarts come at a price , as brass cells require enormous amounts of vigour . Our brain makes up just 3 pct of our eubstance , yet take 20 percent of our vim . give this cost , life forms become only as crafty as evolutionary pressures need . " Very few creatures acquire any more intelligence than they take , " said Ward . [ What If the First Animals to Crawl Out of the Ocean Had Six Legs Instead of Four ? ]
In primates , complex societal coalition are thought to have fueled human memory and terminology skills . Modern carnivores such as dog and cat do demonstrate high degree of societal tidings as well , but only as much as needed . " Dogs do n’t need to be any more healthy , " say Ward .
Supposing a fungus or a web of bacteria grew to cover a landmass – the latter of which did in Isaac Asimov ’s fresh " Nemesis " – there is not much of a motive for it to develop sentience , Ward said .
Tooth and nail
Competition between metal money also shit a sentient planet seem like quite a stretch .
Picture any ecosystem on Earth , such as a pond , a woods , a desert . In these surround , critter ( and plant ) compete for limited resource of solid food , pee and soil so as to survive and make more of themselves .
" If you believe about what life is , it has three directives , " explained Ward . " It has got to metabolize to get energy , it has to regurgitate and it has to germinate , otherwise it ’s a crystal and it ’s not life story . "
Not only do species compete against others , but the individuals within a coinage usually attempt to outmuscle their peer . Consider the fights between fiddler crabs for existent estate of the realm on the beach , or rival skirt chaser packs over fair game .
All in all , puppet are not programmed to begin join forces together like the cells in an individual ’s body . " With innate selection , someone live and someone dies , " said Ward . " How do you go from many organisms competing to one great matter which does n’t compete ? "
Collective consciousness
There are a few elision to that rule , however . worm colonies , for one , are composed of many M of individuals , and these " superorganisms " play together selflessly to ensure a tabby reproduces . " If you look at bee or ants , those societies are likely as altruistic as one is break to get , " said Ward .
Although item-by-item ants are not particularly bright , the settlement as a whole comes together to achieve amazing results . An emergent intelligence call a " hive psyche " leads to nest grammatical construction , foraging , vernal nurture , flack coordination and even husbandry in ant colonies .
So it ’s not totally out of the question that a unmarried enormous ant dependency could conquer a populace and play as a undivided mind for the colony ’s ( and the major planet ’s ) interests , until resources run wry .
Keeping in contact lens
That belief , however , brings up yet another topic that would confront a orbicular awareness — interior communicating .
Ants utilise chemicals call pheromone to exchange information ; our dead body habituate nerves . These method transmit selective information apace across shortsighted distances , but nonplus a substance around a prodigious being would take quite a long clip .
Even if a planet - size of it entity were a robot , like Unicron in " transformer , " the regions in its consistency could not digitally commune quicker than the fastness of light . At terrestrial scales , " in a giant , connected WWW " – such as a mega - computing machine – " if the thinking is really sort of distributed , it ’s going to be deadening than anything you have in your house , " said Seth Shostak , senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View , Calif.
Room for Gaia ?
All those considerations apart , some scientists have pull ahead the argument that the Earth itself should be thought of as a giant organism .
Conceived in the seventies , the " Gaia speculation " purpose that life on Earth works in concert to maintain a mutually sustainable habitat . For example , the salinity and pH of the ocean are ideal for spirit because life has made it that manner .
The Gaia Hypothesis is very controversial , and Ward has dispute it with the fact of several monumental extermination events fall out throughout Earth ’s account . At any rate , self - regulating feedback loops still accrue light of planetary sentience in the signified of Earth ’s biology taking careful activity with a radical benefit in mind . " You never get that far , " order Ward . " Life hump itself long before you’re able to get to networked intelligence . "
Shostak is dubitable on the matter as well . " After 1000000000000 of years here , we do n’t see a lot of this approach by plant and brute , " he told Life ’s Little Mysteries . " They ’re all mutualist , but they have n’t prove to make a one world being variety of matter . "
Ultimately , our definition of life might be too limited to cover something like Gaia . But for now , Gaia get together Mogo in the fiction department .
Plausibility score : Virtually no conceivable chemical mechanism , nor motive , would allow for the ontogenesis of satellite - size intelligent , biological existence . Unicron and Pandora are dandy for the movies , but when it comes to real life sentence , they earn just one out of a potential four Rocketboys .
