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Draconis, Planet of Terror; Living planet orbitting pulsar
Topic Started: Nov 2 2013, 05:19 PM (1,860 Views)
Deathbite42
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What if planets were alive? And how do they end up around pulsars? This series goes with the game Evolution Revolution, attached, but it is more of an Alternative Evo/Future, while this is Habitable Zone. They are connected in a very strange way, which will be sen later. Here goes:
The planet is known as Draconis. He orbits a pulsar, known as Flash. His moons are known as Phaeton and Lucifer. Being a pulsar, Flash is super dense; it is two solar masses, but only the size of Manhattan Island. It is 100,000 Kelvin. Draconis is one Earth mass, no mistake, as he built our planet in His image. His orbit is an extreme ellipse, and He is tidally locked to Flash. Phaeton is about the size of the moon, (again, not an accident) but is very close to the planet, about 50,000 km. Lucifer is a bit further, 100,000 km, and is 3 times the size of the moon. Both orbits are almost completely circular. But a pulsar is the remnant of the largest explosion since the Big Bang, so why is there a planet orbiting it? And why is there life? Join us next time, for these questions and more, on Draconis, Planet of Terror.
Please make suggestions as to how I can improve.
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Holben
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Deathbite42
Nov 3 2013, 05:51 PM
-snip-
You can reply to specific parts of a post by typing [quote]copy-pasted text[/quote]. It can get confusing if a single paragraph is replying to several diverse paths of conversation. In addition, only having a short bit of your own text at the end of a long quotebox can make you look lazy, whereas interspersing it between quoteboxes makes it look like you have written more.

More generally; I'm guessing from the fact that you posted in this forum that you are going for realism/plausibility. If you're working on a piece of fiction, then the idea is just to make the story and universe interesting and entertaining; plausibility is only one way you can go about doing this. If you don't feel comfortable with it, or you don't feel you've had enough experience to do 'hard' science fiction optimally, then you may be better off staying with a 'softer' science-fiction paradigm. Not concerning yourself with exact details and scientific rigour could actually be the way to make a better story given some people's specific psychologies.

But if you're aiming for a physically believable setting, for each sentence you have written about your planet, think "what is the mechanism for this? How does it physically work?". For example,

Quote:
 
the pulsar's beam is a great energy source as well.


you will know that most of the energy of a pulsar's beam is in the form of either x-rays or gamma-rays. There are radio and optical elements too, and they are visible as the well-known "lighthouse beams". The higher-energy radiation is emitted in wider, fan-like beams of power ranging from 10^26 to 10^30 W- ranging from a bit less than our sun's power output to 2600 times it. So here's this colossal quantity of high-energy radiation that sounds like a great energy source- but the best-known feature of these types of radiation is that they are highly penetrating and it is almost impossible to usefully extract energy from them. In fact, I can only think of one man-made object that converts X-ray energy into work- the nuclear bomb (radiography is energy-using, obviously). So what can you do with that?

I don't feel I can usefully comment on anything else, but I want to reply to another part of your post.

Quote:
 
Most of His powers derive from the science we know, but a very tiny amount are based on those we are only now beginning to understand e.g. quantum mechanics.
It sounds like you have some questions about quantum mechanics. Ask away; I understand that it's really hard for normal people to come across good information about it seeing as 99% of things that mention it are quackery, science fiction, or pseudointellectualism.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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Russwallac
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Quantum mechanics don't magically allow for intelligent planets. Holben's just gonna tell you the same thing.
"We've started a cult about a guy's liver, of course we're going to demand that you give us an incredibly scientific zombie apocalypse." -Nanotyranus

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Deathbite42
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Holbenilord
Nov 4 2013, 08:51 AM
you will know that most of the energy of a pulsar's beam is in the form of either x-rays or gamma-rays. There are radio and optical elements too, and they are visible as the well-known "lighthouse beams". The higher-energy radiation is emitted in wider, fan-like beams of power ranging from 10^26 to 10^30 W- ranging from a bit less than our sun's power output to 2600 times it. So here's this colossal quantity of high-energy radiation that sounds like a great energy source- but the best-known feature of these types of radiation is that they are highly penetrating and it is almost impossible to usefully extract energy from them. In fact, I can only think of one man-made object that converts X-ray energy into work- the nuclear bomb (radiography is energy-using, obviously). So what can you do with that?
Instead of doing that, I'd rather simply remove most of the other post to make it seem like I have written more. In any case, I want to remind you that gamma rays are not like neutrinos; if a deadly blast of gamma radiation came at one side of Earth, I'd be safer on the other side. Draconis's outer core acts as a sieve to absorb this massive ray and transfer it into usable energy.
BTW, quantum physics is applied in QED (quantum electrodynamics) which allows for silicon computing. I already said its' mind is a giant supercomputer underground, but I just realized it does relate to quantum physics as well.
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citrakayah
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"Supercomputer" does not equal "godlike powers." And while you would be safe on the other side of the planet (if you were in a sealed habitat dome, I mean, not standing out in the open), the other side of the planet would be sterilized, and since the planet orbits a pulsar, it would have been completely sterilized by now. And probably lost its atmosphere.
Edited by citrakayah, Nov 5 2013, 05:29 PM.
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Holben
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Deathbite42
Nov 4 2013, 10:22 PM
In any case, I want to remind you that gamma rays are not like neutrinos; if a deadly blast of gamma radiation came at one side of Earth, I'd be safer on the other side.
In actuality both would be certain death. Let's place the planet at 1 AU- maximum distance given that you wanted tidal heating and reasonable year lengths.

Assuming a small pulsar with beams primarily in the X-ray frequencies, the incident energy on the planet's surface is 44.4 MW/cm2. Compare that to the incident solar radiation on Earth, which of course is mainly nearly-harmless visible light, which is 0.136W/cm2- for some nearby figures compare the difference between a laser pointer and one of the lasers used to initiate fusion in laboratories. Imagine an industrial cutting laser pointed at every single square centimetre on one side of the Earth's surface. The atmosphere will be heated to a plasma in moments and escape off into space. The air on the occluded side of the planet will rush to the other side to replace it in hypersonic winds, then get plasmified and escape in turn. With the atmosphere gone, the X-rays can get to work on the planet's surface.

I assumed the crust is SiO2, the most common compound in the crusts of Earth, Venus, and Mars. Every second, 0.05mm of surface will ablate away. This may not seem like much, but it means it would only take twenty years to have completely ablated the crust, leaving the mantle exposed to space. The mantle will take substantially longer to destroy, somewhere around 1840 years to remove. The core, being mainly solid iron now, will take a few million years to be annihilated. And then there will be nothing.

Of course, the moons will have both have been vaporised early on.

Quote:
 
Draconis's outer core acts as a sieve to absorb this massive ray and transfer it into usable energy.
As I said early on, you need to consider "what is the mechanism for this? How does it physically work?".

Quote:
 
BTW, quantum physics is applied in QED (quantum electrodynamics) which allows for silicon computing. I already said its' mind is a giant supercomputer underground, but I just realized it does relate to quantum physics as well.
Friction is applied in fluid mechanics, which allows for waterwheels, yet no-one claims that friction grants water superpowers. Quantum physics is an enormous field that affects absolutely everything in the universe and its properties are those seen in reality. I think it would be best for you to lay down what you want your entity to be able to do and then see how you can make each individual ability work.
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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Space Gorilla
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I keep reading "living planet" the wrong way it seems. Are you trying to compose something more realistic? Since, the only examples of living planet that I know of are Green Lantern Universe's Mogo character, and Stanislaw Lem's Solaris. Neither of which are examples of hard sci-fi ideas, especially Mogo (Lem at least tried to build something of substance more or less).

While an interesting idea, as others have said, its hard to build a hard case on it with the science so far, as we understand it.

I do have another question - tidally locked planets and elongated, eccentric orbits? How does that work with one another exactly?


If you wanted something out of the box, exotic, instead of a pulsar, have your planet orbit a simple D-type white dwarf, like I have done a couple of times in my own fictional universe. You have the exotic "sun" factor, the ghost remnant of a star, a surviving planet (it has more chance to survive this way), and its a lot more plausible. There are a few papers that consider this idea in reality to be something we come across one day as we explore space.
Edited by Space Gorilla, Nov 5 2013, 03:45 PM.
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TAXESbutNano
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Could I try suggesting a different version, modified so it's got more normal science in it?
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colddigger
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Friction gives water superpowers. I'm just saying that now.
Oh Fine.

Oh hi you! Why don't you go check out the finery that is SGP??

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Deathbite42
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Holbenilord
Nov 5 2013, 12:19 PM
Deathbite42
Nov 4 2013, 10:22 PM
In any case, I want to remind you that gamma rays are not like neutrinos; if a deadly blast of gamma radiation came at one side of Earth, I'd be safer on the other side.
In actuality both would be certain death. Let's place the planet at 1 AU- maximum distance given that you wanted tidal heating and reasonable year lengths.

Assuming a small pulsar with beams primarily in the X-ray frequencies, the incident energy on the planet's surface is 44.4 MW/cm2. Compare that to the incident solar radiation on Earth, which of course is mainly nearly-harmless visible light, which is 0.136W/cm2- for some nearby figures compare the difference between a laser pointer and one of the lasers used to initiate fusion in laboratories. Imagine an industrial cutting laser pointed at every single square centimetre on one side of the Earth's surface. The atmosphere will be heated to a plasma in moments and escape off into space. The air on the occluded side of the planet will rush to the other side to replace it in hypersonic winds, then get plasmified and escape in turn. With the atmosphere gone, the X-rays can get to work on the planet's surface.

I assumed the crust is SiO2, the most common compound in the crusts of Earth, Venus, and Mars. Every second, 0.05mm of surface will ablate away. This may not seem like much, but it means it would only take twenty years to have completely ablated the crust, leaving the mantle exposed to space. The mantle will take substantially longer to destroy, somewhere around 1840 years to remove. The core, being mainly solid iron now, will take a few million years to be annihilated. And then there will be nothing.

Of course, the moons will have both have been vaporised early on.

Quote:
 
Draconis's outer core acts as a sieve to absorb this massive ray and transfer it into usable energy.
As I said early on, you need to consider "what is the mechanism for this? How does it physically work?".

Quote:
 
BTW, quantum physics is applied in QED (quantum electrodynamics) which allows for silicon computing. I already said its' mind is a giant supercomputer underground, but I just realized it does relate to quantum physics as well.
Friction is applied in fluid mechanics, which allows for waterwheels, yet no-one claims that friction grants water superpowers. Quantum physics is an enormous field that affects absolutely everything in the universe and its properties are those seen in reality. I think it would be best for you to lay down what you want your entity to be able to do and then see how you can make each individual ability work.
Actually, I do not want year-lengths reasonable to us, because their year is treated like their day, but let's forget that for a moment.
The next problem is the reason that Draconis has a 3-d orbit, so that He rarely reaches the beam. It is true that there is still a large amount of energy cutting the atmosphere, which is why one side always faces one way. That way as atmosphere is disintegrated, on one side more is replenished on the other. Yes, I will find a mechanism for this, but I already know it is at least 50% artificial.
Having a big hole of sorts in the atmosphere is still an issue, because now it cuts the ground. Fortunately, Draconis regenerates much faster than this; all that pressure and temperature energy doesn't go to waste.
The moons are also made to do something similar, but they cannot regenerate as abiotic bodies. They get much less radiation, but are still being destroyed slowly, so their inhabitants created a powerful magnetic field to far lessen the effects.
Well, there are a bunch of chemicals that become more useful than they are to biology when heated, so there is an insulator that turns gamma rays into thermal energy which heats them. Very basic idea, but it connects the dots.
I think the most relevant power is the nano-cloud that allows Draconis to control your mind. Most other things are made by His empire.
As for Nanotyrannus, yes, I'd really appreciate it.
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Holben
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Deathbite42
Nov 6 2013, 12:48 AM
Actually, I do not want year-lengths reasonable to us, because their year is treated like their day, but let's forget that for a moment.
If it's tidally locked, it has to be within a certain distance from the primary. This is the situation that gives rise to identical day and year lengths.

Quote:
 
The next problem is the reason that Draconis has a 3-d orbit, so that He rarely reaches the beam.
You mean an orbit inclined to the plane of the pulsar's rotation, like so;

Posted Image

to avoid the lighthouse beams? This wouldn't work, because the pulsar is spinning. The inclined orbit has to intersect the plane of emission- imagine a disc stretching out to the edge of the system with the pulsar at the centre. Because EM radiation diverges with distance, the thickness at 1AU will be many kilometres. The angled orbit will invariably pass through it, and stay in the irradiated region for several minutes.

But it isn't actually the lighthouse beams we're concerned about. It's the X-rays; they're not emitted as lighthouse beams. Here's a good graph of pulsar emission:

Posted Image

As you can see, the second pulsar is not pointing its lighthouse beam at us, hence the lack of a detected optical element. Yet we detect constant gamma and X-ray radiation. It spikes as the magnetosphere rotates but even the baseline level is enough to cause the effects I described last post.

Quote:
 
Having a big hole of sorts in the atmosphere is still an issue, because now it cuts the ground. Fortunately, Draconis regenerates much faster than this; all that pressure and temperature energy doesn't go to waste.
Air is a fluid; it moves to equilibrium. As soon as the atmosphere on one side of the planet is blasted away the air on the other side will rush around- and the differential is so great the wind will have enough speed to convert anything in its way into mulch. And then the air entering the sub-stellar hemisphere will be destroyed, and the process continues until there is no air left on the planet.

How does Draconis regenerate? Where does the mass and structure come from? 0.05mm/s over the entire surface means that each second the planet is losing enough mass to make up 4% of Pluto each second, or enough to make Jupiter's moon Europa in just eight minutes.

Quote:
 
The moons are also made to do something similar, but they cannot regenerate as abiotic bodies. They get much less radiation, but are still being destroyed slowly, so their inhabitants created a powerful magnetic field to far lessen the effects.
Each square centimetre of exposed surface gets the same radiation as those on the main planet, and remembering your square-cube law that means the effects will be worse, rather than better. A magnetic field has no effect on X-rays and gamma rays, BTW; it stops the charged particles of the solar wind.

Quote:
 
Well, there are a bunch of chemicals that become more useful than they are to biology when heated, so there is an insulator that turns gamma rays into thermal energy which heats them. Very basic idea, but it connects the dots.
So a block of, say, iron that is heated up by the incident radiation and then you use the heat differential on the other side to produce electricity or you harvest the lower-energy EM radiation it's now emitting? Unfortunately if there are sufficient X-rays and gamma-rays to cause significant heating then it will also be ablating the surface and the generator won't last long.

Quote:
 
I think the most relevant power is the nano-cloud that allows Draconis to control your mind. Most other things are made by His empire.
We can analyse this; some questions to consider.

  • What are the nanomachines made from?
  • How are they powered?
  • How do they deal with the radiation and heat problems that are such a big threat to tiny machines?
  • How are they controlled?
  • How do they manipulate their environment?
  • How do they enter the body/cross the blood-brain barrier?
  • How can they control an object as complex, variable, redundancy-filled and non-binary as a brain?
Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea.

"It is the old wound my king. It has never healed."
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TAXESbutNano
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Okay, so for the main problems in the project:

1. Massive amounts of radiation from the pulsar
2. How the entire planet is alive and sentient
3. How the planet regrows

My recommendations would be:

1. It's around a red dwarf star, which will have frequent solar flares hitting the planet (which are still lethal, but survivable)
2. The core of the planet is largely hollow. There is machinery nearer the surface, though, and it's advanced enough to draw antimatter from antimatter-using alternate universes. This provides enough energy to sustain the supercomputer, and enough energy to contain an incredibly dense thing at the centre of the planet to create gravity suitable for a planet of its size.
3. If it is damaged, it draws matter from an alternate universe and patches itself up.

With this, it looks a lot more sciencey and plausible, and the only hand wave (opening doors to alternate universes) is a widely-used one in spec-evo.
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colddigger
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I thought the point was to figure out how to have something exist around a pulsar.. Are you suggesting to change what it orbits entirely?
Oh Fine.

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TAXESbutNano
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Yes. Yes I am.
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Deathbite42
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Holbenilord
Nov 6 2013, 05:05 AM
Quote:
 
Having a big hole of sorts in the atmosphere is still an issue, because now it cuts the ground. Fortunately, Draconis regenerates much faster than this; all that pressure and temperature energy doesn't go to waste.
Air is a fluid; it moves to equilibrium. As soon as the atmosphere on one side of the planet is blasted away the air on the other side will rush around- and the differential is so great the wind will have enough speed to convert anything in its way into mulch. And then the air entering the sub-stellar hemisphere will be destroyed, and the process continues until there is no air left on the planet.

How does Draconis regenerate? Where does the mass and structure come from? 0.05mm/s over the entire surface means that each second the planet is losing enough mass to make up 4% of Pluto each second, or enough to make Jupiter's moon Europa in just eight minutes.

Quote:
 
The moons are also made to do something similar, but they cannot regenerate as abiotic bodies. They get much less radiation, but are still being destroyed slowly, so their inhabitants created a powerful magnetic field to far lessen the effects.
Each square centimetre of exposed surface gets the same radiation as those on the main planet, and remembering your square-cube law that means the effects will be worse, rather than better. A magnetic field has no effect on X-rays and gamma rays, BTW; it stops the charged particles of the solar wind.

Quote:
 
Well, there are a bunch of chemicals that become more useful than they are to biology when heated, so there is an insulator that turns gamma rays into thermal energy which heats them. Very basic idea, but it connects the dots.
So a block of, say, iron that is heated up by the incident radiation and then you use the heat differential on the other side to produce electricity or you harvest the lower-energy EM radiation it's now emitting? Unfortunately if there are sufficient X-rays and gamma-rays to cause significant heating then it will also be ablating the surface and the generator won't last long.

Quote:
 
I think the most relevant power is the nano-cloud that allows Draconis to control your mind. Most other things are made by His empire.
We can analyse this; some questions to consider.

  • What are the nanomachines made from?
  • How are they powered?
  • How do they deal with the radiation and heat problems that are such a big threat to tiny machines?
  • How are they controlled?
  • How do they manipulate their environment?
  • How do they enter the body/cross the blood-brain barrier?
  • How can they control an object as complex, variable, redundancy-filled and non-binary as a brain?
The atmosphere is very thick, so the wind currents created by the radiation rush up high above the surface. They are moving the air below, but at a rate slow enough that it is bearable, especially when you're underwater.

I said, only the North Pole and anything a few millimeters from it get radiation at the surface; it gets this new mass relatively easily.

:dazed: I'm an idiot, I meant ELECTROmagnetic field. And an EM field definitely stops EM radiation.

Would the generator be safe it was deep underground? I have no idea, but take into account that it is probably nothing like anything we know.

1. The nanomachines are probably made from a large variety of materials, but carbon nanotubes are probably one of them.
2. They harness many kinds of energy, the most prevalent being thermal.
3. They exist deep underground or underwater.
4. They use quantum entanglement or some other non-local method of energy transmission.
5. They are equipped with many tools to control their environment, including...
6. ...a micro-drill that bores a miniscule hole in the skin or blood vessel and...
7. ...subliminal messaging, among many, many, many other things used to control the brain.
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Deathbite42
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Nanotyranus
Nov 6 2013, 10:46 AM

My recommendations would be:

1. It's around a red dwarf star, which will have frequent solar flares hitting the planet (which are still lethal, but survivable)

With this, it looks a lot more sciencey and plausible, and the only hand wave (opening doors to alternate universes) is a widely-used one in spec-evo.
Draconis does orbit a pulsar, but the rest of what you said is what I had in mind. Except, even though He DOES open portals to alternate universes, He would rather not reinvent the wheel. His energy does partially come from the Beyond, but not from anti-matter; His armies take living things and sacrifice them to Him. Yes, they do also get matter from there, but also from the planets they conquer. Opening doors to alternate universes has been used so often that people found a mechanism that makes it NOT a hand wave: if you send enough energy, (probably high-powered lasers) to a precise point, you've got a wormhole. In Welcome to the Universe, Stephen Hawking said there are wormholes all around you, but they are so tiny they have no noticeable effects. The lasers can blow it up to something large enough the nanobots can go through, who can then set up a receiver, so you will be able to teleport ships.That's when things get ugly for any life that's near it :P
Edited by Deathbite42, Nov 8 2013, 01:41 PM.
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