Packing your bags for the long trip? Thinking that Earth is too hazardous a place for life, what with all the earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, violent storms, and viruses? Ready for life elsewhere, like those recently discovered 24 planets that Professor Schulze-Makuch and colleagues say are “better” places for life than Earth?*
Is it a sign of the times that during a pandemic year, humans yearn for a home more suitable for life than this old planet? Is the yearning a psycho-social thing, a seeking of, as the academics term it on campuses, safe spaces?
Without much of a blink, some see utopian worlds out there—somewhere. They are, of course, unreachable at this time, and probably will remain so unless Nature changes its fundamental laws that govern the physical world. Trips to extra-solar planets are fraught with the dangers of space travel and the dangers that generations born aboard a spacecraft will not know why their ancestors began the journey. Take Kepler-1126, for example. It’s one of those “Goldilocks” planets, supposedly lying in a habitable zone. But it’s 2,112 LY away. That means, of course (as though I would have to explain it to you of all people) that if Julius Caesar‘s contemporaries boarded a ship bound for that planet, their descendants would only just be approaching it. Now, what if, when they got there this year, they found—if they remembered why their ancestors embarked on the journey—that the planet was, in fact uninhabitable? And that arrival this year as figured in "Earth-time," of course, is based on those ancient Romans traveling at a speed that still lies beyond human technical capabilities.
“Better” places? Look around. Where does Earth’s surface and crust lack adaptive life? Seems like a pretty good place to live if you can adapt. That’s the key, isn’t it? Adapting. Take black fire ants, for example. In an experiment run by Aiming Zhou and others, the ants literally used “tools” to avoid drowning while acquiring food.** Given a supply of sand grains, ants built a system that used capillary action to draw off a sugary liquid. The ants fashioned a tool--certainly a sign of adapting.
Adaptation. It’s what life has done for 3.5 billion years here. It’s what makes Earth habitable. Sure, life got a start as a bunch of replicating chemicals in what now would be a poisonous environment for most aerobic organisms—like us. But that early life, in unconsciously adapting to its environment, changed that environment, and, walla! Here we are doing the same, often consciously.
Could life have done the same elsewhere, say on those 24 “superhabitable” exoplanets? Maybe. Possibly. Even probably. As we know life, we know it adapts and changes, and in doing so, it changes its environment. “Better” for life than Earth? What does that mean? “Better” for what kind of life? Anaerobic organisms found early Earth habitable, even hospitable. But given my druthers, I wouldn’t want to go back to that Earth even though it was “habitable” and inhabited.
I suppose that astronomers do as much imagining as they do imaging. Certainly, however, at this stage of technology and physical limitations, their imagining is akin to what I do when I buy a lottery ticket. (Hmmnnn. Here’s how I will spend the money…) In their minds, they have already made the journey to those 24 planets, but in reality, they are Earth-bound. Could there be a better planet than Earth for life? Maybe. But, regardless of the dangers we all face on this planet and to which we have to adapt, I’ll bet you are happy you chose this one to live on.
*Schulze-Macuch, Dirk, et al., In Search for a Planet Better than Earth: Top Contenders for a Superhabitable World. Astobiology, published online September 18, 2020; doi: 10.1089/ast.2019.2161. Summary found at http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/superhabitable-exoplanets-08919.html Oct. 5, 2020. Accessed October 10, 2020.
**Zhou, Aiming, et al. Ants adjust their tool use strategy in response to foraging risk. Functional Ecology, published online October 7, 2020; doi: 10.111/1365-2435.13671. Summary found at http://www.sci-news.com/biology/black-imported-fire-ants-tool-use-08933.html Oct. 8, 2020. Accessed October 10, 2020.
Is it a sign of the times that during a pandemic year, humans yearn for a home more suitable for life than this old planet? Is the yearning a psycho-social thing, a seeking of, as the academics term it on campuses, safe spaces?
Without much of a blink, some see utopian worlds out there—somewhere. They are, of course, unreachable at this time, and probably will remain so unless Nature changes its fundamental laws that govern the physical world. Trips to extra-solar planets are fraught with the dangers of space travel and the dangers that generations born aboard a spacecraft will not know why their ancestors began the journey. Take Kepler-1126, for example. It’s one of those “Goldilocks” planets, supposedly lying in a habitable zone. But it’s 2,112 LY away. That means, of course (as though I would have to explain it to you of all people) that if Julius Caesar‘s contemporaries boarded a ship bound for that planet, their descendants would only just be approaching it. Now, what if, when they got there this year, they found—if they remembered why their ancestors embarked on the journey—that the planet was, in fact uninhabitable? And that arrival this year as figured in "Earth-time," of course, is based on those ancient Romans traveling at a speed that still lies beyond human technical capabilities.
“Better” places? Look around. Where does Earth’s surface and crust lack adaptive life? Seems like a pretty good place to live if you can adapt. That’s the key, isn’t it? Adapting. Take black fire ants, for example. In an experiment run by Aiming Zhou and others, the ants literally used “tools” to avoid drowning while acquiring food.** Given a supply of sand grains, ants built a system that used capillary action to draw off a sugary liquid. The ants fashioned a tool--certainly a sign of adapting.
Adaptation. It’s what life has done for 3.5 billion years here. It’s what makes Earth habitable. Sure, life got a start as a bunch of replicating chemicals in what now would be a poisonous environment for most aerobic organisms—like us. But that early life, in unconsciously adapting to its environment, changed that environment, and, walla! Here we are doing the same, often consciously.
Could life have done the same elsewhere, say on those 24 “superhabitable” exoplanets? Maybe. Possibly. Even probably. As we know life, we know it adapts and changes, and in doing so, it changes its environment. “Better” for life than Earth? What does that mean? “Better” for what kind of life? Anaerobic organisms found early Earth habitable, even hospitable. But given my druthers, I wouldn’t want to go back to that Earth even though it was “habitable” and inhabited.
I suppose that astronomers do as much imagining as they do imaging. Certainly, however, at this stage of technology and physical limitations, their imagining is akin to what I do when I buy a lottery ticket. (Hmmnnn. Here’s how I will spend the money…) In their minds, they have already made the journey to those 24 planets, but in reality, they are Earth-bound. Could there be a better planet than Earth for life? Maybe. But, regardless of the dangers we all face on this planet and to which we have to adapt, I’ll bet you are happy you chose this one to live on.
*Schulze-Macuch, Dirk, et al., In Search for a Planet Better than Earth: Top Contenders for a Superhabitable World. Astobiology, published online September 18, 2020; doi: 10.1089/ast.2019.2161. Summary found at http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/superhabitable-exoplanets-08919.html Oct. 5, 2020. Accessed October 10, 2020.
**Zhou, Aiming, et al. Ants adjust their tool use strategy in response to foraging risk. Functional Ecology, published online October 7, 2020; doi: 10.111/1365-2435.13671. Summary found at http://www.sci-news.com/biology/black-imported-fire-ants-tool-use-08933.html Oct. 8, 2020. Accessed October 10, 2020.
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