Ammonia life

[Enio]

Alternative Life - Ammonia-based biosphere

Type of geography:

Other solar systems can have planets with biosphere based on ammonia and an atmosphere 20 times more thick than Earth.
The gases of these atmospheres could have nitrogen, few methane, hidrocarbonets and ammonia vapor.
The size of these worlds would be quite big than Earth and the gravity would be quite high.
These planets could have more heavy elements or not ( could be more dense or not than our planet ).
The color of these planets would be pale green because of the combinations of nitrogen, methane, hidrocarbonets and clouds of ammonia vapor.
These planets could have more or less ammonia than water in our planet.
The high density and rotation speed could produce a strong magnetic field that protect the organisms against X-rays and Gamma-rays.
These planets could have one or more moons to mantain the obliquity.

Type of life:

The life would begin in the hydrothermal vents under oceans or lakes of ammonia.
These organisms could live on temperatures less below than zero with no problems at all and the ultraviolet radiation could not be a problem for them, beause they would have pigments that can protect them against high radiations like ultraviolet and X-rays.
The plants on these planets could use part of visible spectrum and ultraviolet spectrum to realize photosintesis.
The animals could use ultraviolet light to help the low metabolism and to obtain extra energy for their cells.
Because of the higher density of the atmosphere, there could have a big diversity of species of avians.
And I think that these worlds have a big chance to develop intelligent life.

I think that my idea is obviously interesting I want to know what you think of this great idea.

[Enio]

Did you read the description above?
The ammonia life is in reality an anaerobic complex life. The Organisms don't use oxigen to obtain energy, but they use some types of sugars and ionized nitrogen.
First these organisms used only quimic reactions using sugars at high temperatures in the hydrothermal vents and millions of years later they also used photossinthetic reactions and finnaly reached the surface.

[Enio]

Any comentaries or suggestions?

[Slalomsk8er]

Cool idea, do you have some links about this topic?

I heard of silica live on earth some time ago, deep sea I think.

[Enio]

Yes, try [http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/A/ammonialife.html].
There is much information in this site not only about ammonia-based life but also have other alternatives for life. And also have about silicon-based life.

[Enio]

The water for organisms that live in ammonia is a corrisive substance and the oxigen is highly toxic for these organisms as the fluorine is highly toxic for humans. This type of planet is hostile for humans to visit and Earth is hostile for these organisms to visit. But the problem is that the ionized nitrogen don't give them too much energy than oxigen give for us.

In this planet I imagine a biosphere that is tottaly different and very different civilizations. Their buildings would be piramids as the Egyptians did.

If you give me any suggestion or commentary, I will be very happy.

[eburacum45]

Interesting stuff; I am interested in the possibility of other chemistries, athogh I am a little sceptical if there will be real instances of this sort of life occuring naturally;
it might however be created artificially.

What sort of temperature do you envisage these ammonia worlds at?

The Orion's Arm project has a number of worlds with ammonia- based intelligent life-

here are some of them...
http://www.orionsarm.com/xenos/Muuh.html
http://www.orionsarm.com/xenos/Soft_Ones.html
http://www.orionsarm.com/galactography/ ... olume.html

[Enio]

Temperatures at 286K at high atmosphere pressures.

[Enio]

The intelligent ammonia-based organism have a body like ours, but the body is small, avarage of 80 cm tall, and they are fat. The brain is large and they have capacity to spend little energy because of the low metabolism that ammonia give to them.

[eburacum45]

Interesting; if you imagine a high pressure regime then Ammonia boils in a similar range of temperatures to water on Earth!

Certainly bears thinking about; although green might not be the only colour in such a world.


Water now becomes a poison, of course; how do you explain the absence of such a common molecule?

[Enio]

The plants of these planets with ammonia need the ultraviolet light of the star to survive, only need the components of the surface like salts, ammonia and sugars. The plants and animals don't breathe the components of air, because they can't fix the nitrogen in their cells. They need the ultraviolet light to compensate the low metabolism of their bodies, because the ultraviolet light could accelerate the speed of the cells and substances.
You can give me any opinion about this if you want, and if you give me any suggestion or commentary, I will be very happy that there are people that have a good interest about alternative life based with other substances and environments.

[granthutchison]

You have a problem with ammonia photolysis - under the influence of all that ultraviolet light, gaseous ammonia very quickly decomposes to nitrogen and hydrogen.

Grant

[Peji]

Hello

It's hard for me to follow you in your scientific talk, because I'm not a scientist and... I'm french !
Just for fun : a literary talk about extraterrestrial life (like red gely !) in Philip K. Dick's novel : "Galactic Pot Healer" (in french : "Le gu?risseur de cath?drales").

[ajtribick]

You have a problem with ammonia photolysis - under the influence of all that ultraviolet light, gaseous ammonia very quickly decomposes to nitrogen and hydrogen.

Grant

So ammonia life would be more likely around cooler stars, e.g. K or M types, which produce less ultraviolet?

How exactly would water be poisonous? Couldn't any hypothetical organisms deal with this toxin in a way similar to the way Earth life managed to deal with all that horrendous toxic corrosive oxygen produced by photosynthetic organisms?

[Guest]

How exactly would water be poisonous?

It's the shift in pH. When you add water to ammonia you form ammonium hydroxide (bleach) ... so you go from a rather gentle environment of solubility-promoting hydrogen bonds to one full of hydrogen-ion scavenging hydroxyl ions. This induces big conformal changes in proteins, which is how NH4OH kills bacteria, and why it turns your cornea opaque if you get it in your eye.
But given how common water is in the Universe, it seems very unlikely that you'd have a pure ammonia biosphere - you'd more likely have an ammonia/water mix from the outset, which near the freezing point gives you all sort of interesting phase changes.

Grant