uranus help. PLEASE

[courtneylinae]

okayy.

so im doing this project for my planets and moons class at school, and i am supposed to type a two page report about a "creature" of my choice to live on any planet. i chose the planet URANUS. im trying to figure out how my creature can breathe on the the planet Uranus. I know that there is methane hydrogen and helium on the planet. Is there a way you can breathe those gases? or are they perfectly okay to breathe in? will they even hurt you if they are inhaled?

[hermanntrude]

that atmosphere would certainly kill any multi-celled organism on earth. Probably anything single-celled too. I think (but i'm not sure) that there are some bacteria that can handle methane, but probably not any that could handle the temperature that far from the sun. I think you chose a bad planet. I don't think you'll be able to describe this creature very easily unless you start just making stuff up.

 

Hydrogen is highly flammable but you can breathe it if you're mad enough to try. it still wont give you oxygen, though, which you will need to stay alive. A few lungfuls and you'd start to pass out... although you'd die with a very amusingly squeaky voice. the same is true of helium except helium isnt flammable.

[iNow]

Okay... Here's an idea after a glass of whiskey...

 

You could say that there is a bacteria on earth that really thrived on farms, as they hang around the butts of cows. Everytime the cow farts, they get energy from methane and reproduce... This goes on for centuries.

 

Then, our space program starts sending up satellites to the planets, and during the manufacturing process some of these bacteria accidentally get on to the equipment. Then, way out in space, the satellite crashes into Uranus, and the bacteria... having evolved to thrive on methane... prosper wildly in the new environment. It's like the panspermia hypothesis.

 

Then, a few million years pass on Uranus, and soon there are 12 limbed creatures that evolved from the bacteria, and tentacled monsters that float around the clouds...

 

The creature inhales hydrogen from the atmosphere and uses it to float (since it is so light compared to the surrounding air), it interacts with other creatures, and eats lesser organisms not quite as advanced... all while breathing methane.

 

 

Okay... I'm just throwing that out there. I'm heading for another glass of whiskey now. Good luck.

[courtneylinae]

thanks!!!!!

you guys were a HUGE help!!!!

[Moontanman]

Courtney, Issac Asimov postulated in one of his many real science books it was possible for a multicellular creature to metabolize hydrogen, in other words breath it and obtain energy from hydrogen in a way similar to the way we do oxygen. The creature would exhale methane for the same reason we exhale CO2. On the Earth there are microbes that directly metabolize hydrogen and give off methane. So if indeed life has evolved in the world wide ocean of water thought to exist on Uranus, it is theoretically possible they could have evolved into hydrogen breathers. In Asimov's view these creatures would also use molecules similar to what we see as saturated fats in the same way we use proteans and in a sun powered saturation unsaturation cycle.

[CaptainPanic]

You need to find a kind of reaction that runs on sunlight that turns methane into a component with a higher energy. Then your organism can eat that higher component, and exhale or fart methane.

 

iNow, methane from cows is a waste product of anaerobic digestion. The butt of a cow doesn't contain any oxygen, which is why the cow doesn't explode. to my knowledge, no microorganism eats methane in absence of oxygen. The same goes for hydrogen - you cannot have a metabolism with only a fuel, and no oxygen.

 

For a working metabolism, and a working ecosystem, you need to have two equal but opposite reactions, like on earth:

Photosynthesis turns CO2 and water into sugars, and all other life turns the sugars back into CO2 and water.

 

Therefore, you'll need two organisms that help each other. One "plant", which utilizes the sunlight and one that just consumes all available "plants".

Edited May 14, 2009 by CaptainPanic
fixing a mistake

[iNow]

iNow, methane from cows is a waste product of anaerobic digestion. The butt of a cow doesn't contain any oxygen, which is why the cow doesn't explode. to my knowledge, no microorganism eats methane in absence of oxygen.

I promise that I shall try harder in the future to ensure my attempts at humor are more grounded in reality and scientific principles.

 

As an aside, though... the air surrounding the bovine poop extruder (as well as the fur where the diggle berries gather) does have available oxygen, so maybe I wasn't so off-base when positing that some wea beasties could munch smorgasbord style around the milk makers buttocks.

 

 

Thanks for the correction, all the same.

[CaptainPanic]

Hehe,

I don't care too much myself, but I believe that the starter of this thread (courtneylinae) is now actually using your input for his homework...

[Mr Skeptic]

There's billions of bacteria living in your anus.

[Moontanman]

So Captain, you are going to panic and ignore all the hydrogen in Uranus? Spank me now, I couldn't help my self..........

[samtheflash82]

You need to find a kind of reaction that runs on sunlight

 

sunlight would be extremely scarce on uranus. i cant think of a way to generate the kind of heat needed for normal respiration that we have on earth that would work on uranus.

 

i know that carl sagan postulated that it would be possible for creatures to live on jupiter or saturn in one of his books but i dont remember which one.

[iNow]

sunlight would be extremely scarce on uranus. i cant think of a way to generate the kind of heat needed for normal respiration that we have on earth that would work on uranus.

 

Extremophiles.

Thermal vents.

 

Don't give up without considering the larger set of data.

[CaptainPanic]

sunlight would be extremely scarce on uranus. i cant think of a way to generate the kind of heat needed for normal respiration that we have on earth that would work on uranus.

 

i know that carl sagan postulated that it would be possible for creatures to live on jupiter or saturn in one of his books but i dont remember which one.

 

You cannot have an evolution over billions of years of a species that eats its own natural resources. Humans seem to be capable to finishing all resources in a matter of a few hundred years.

 

I had understood the OP (opening post?) as a question about life that could possibly evolve on Uranus.

 

If we're talking about something that has evolved, then sunlight is the only source of energy that it can utilize - unless this life we're looking for is found on such a tiny scale that it has almost zero impact on the planet... But that isn't possible, because life has one important characteristic: it spreads as long as resources are available.

[Moontanman]

You cannot have an evolution over billions of years of a species that eats its own natural resources. Humans seem to be capable to finishing all resources in a matter of a few hundred years.

 

I had understood the OP (opening post?) as a question about life that could possibly evolve on Uranus.

 

If we're talking about something that has evolved, then sunlight is the only source of energy that it can utilize - unless this life we're looking for is found on such a tiny scale that it has almost zero impact on the planet... But that isn't possible, because life has one important characteristic: it spreads as long as resources are available.

 

Life will find a way to quote an old movie but realistically in Uranus there should be much more heat and chemical energy than there is in the Earth and such chemical and heat energy similar to the "black or white" smokers under the ocean of the earth could indeed supply large amounts of energy. Life is not about consuming all the resources available but more about recycling them. One creatures waste product is another creatures food. Heat and chemical energy could power this recycling process in Uranus.