Back in November of 2021, I had plans for NaNoWriMo.
I did not fulfill my plans for NaNoWriMo.
Instead, I started writing a series of fictional-non-fiction articles, like The Transgalatic Guide to Solar System M-17 or Wayne Barlowe's Expedition, detailing the exotic biochemistries of alien worlds. I had aimed to get through 12 such articles; I actually managed 9. Now, I am revising those originals and working on adding more to the series, to be posted here on my blog.
Chronological Listing
Each article is mostly self-contained, but later articles may refer back to earlier ones with interesting parallels or contrasts.
Categories
Desert Worlds
Desert worlds may have large bodies of liquid, on or under the surface, but are characterized by a lack of environmentally-accessible liquid or supercritical biosolvent. Most desert worlds feature organisms which can produce their own biosolvent internally from environmental materials, but some may rely on melting or condensing it when the necessary molecule is accessible, but environmental conditions do not permit its existence in liquid form.
Cryogenic Worlds
Cryogenic worlds are those on which the native lifeforms exist in temperatures at which pure liquid water cannot exist, universally employing antifreeze mixtures or non-water solvents.
Silicon Worlds
Silicon worlds are those on which the native biochemistry makes extensive use of silicon as a polymeric backbone atom. This might popularly be termed "silicon-based life"; however, most silicon-using biospheres also make extensive use of carbon chemistry, or highly heterogenous polymer bases, making any strict boundaries between "silicon-based" and "carbon-based" life very unclear. Silicon worlds are a notable category mainly in contrast to "aqueous worlds", rather than "carbon-based biology worlds" ("carbon world" having an entirely unrelated technical definition), as it is the presence of reactive liquid water, rather than competition from carbon chemistry, which limits the possibilities for complex silicon chemistry on such worlds.
Sulfur Worlds
Sulfur worlds are those on which large quantities of sulfur have been concentrated on the surface, resulting it its integration into solvent molecules (H2SO4, SO2, or elemental sulfur) and an expanded role in biochemistry.
Non-Polar Solvents
Biological systems relying exclusively on a single solvent system are extremely rare; just as Earthling life, which relies on polar water, nevertheless employs many molecules which are soluble only in the non-polar lipophillic phase, and accumulates non-polar fats and oils in vesicles, so do biosystems based on non-polar solvents frequently rely on polar chemistry. Nevertheless, the biosystems of the following worlds rely primarily on non-polar solvents, just as Earthlings rely primarily on water.
No comments:
Post a Comment