Extraterrestrials but inside the solar system?
July 15, 2011 8:18 AM Subscribe
I'm interested in reading (or listening, viewing etc.) speculative science essays or hard science fiction that postulates complex, extraterrestrial life within our solar system.
I'm interested in reasonable (from the perspective of current astronomy and biology) speculation of complex life (multicellular, the more complex the better) within the solar system. A fictional example (though I don't know whether the science behind it holds up) is Arthur Clarke's A Meeting with Medusa (also explored in Ep. 2 of Carl Sagan's Cosmos).
It can be very speculative (in terms of types of life very different from our own and in what types of environments it might flourish), but I'd like it to at least try to stay within the bounds of current science (so no interstellar tourists tunneling under Venus after arriving in their FTL spaceships), no hyperintelligent shades of the colour blue). I'm particularly interested in speculation based on our inferences (from earth observations or space probes) about the physical and chemical conditions and climates of known planets, moons and so forth in our solar system.
I'm interested in reasonable (from the perspective of current astronomy and biology) speculation of complex life (multicellular, the more complex the better) within the solar system. A fictional example (though I don't know whether the science behind it holds up) is Arthur Clarke's A Meeting with Medusa (also explored in Ep. 2 of Carl Sagan's Cosmos).
It can be very speculative (in terms of types of life very different from our own and in what types of environments it might flourish), but I'd like it to at least try to stay within the bounds of current science (so no interstellar tourists tunneling under Venus after arriving in their FTL spaceships), no hyperintelligent shades of the colour blue). I'm particularly interested in speculation based on our inferences (from earth observations or space probes) about the physical and chemical conditions and climates of known planets, moons and so forth in our solar system.
Have you seen Alien Planet? It was a Discovery series kinda akin to Walking with Dinosaurs but with conjectured aliens instead of dinosaurs. Pretty fun to watch.
Along the same lines is The Future is Wild. Same deal but instead of aliens it is speculative evolution on planet earth 100 bajillion years into the future. Also fun to watch.
posted by ian1977 at 8:50 AM on July 15, 2011
Along the same lines is The Future is Wild. Same deal but instead of aliens it is speculative evolution on planet earth 100 bajillion years into the future. Also fun to watch.
posted by ian1977 at 8:50 AM on July 15, 2011
Ben Bova's Jupiter fits the bill. Bova is scrupulous with his adherence to hard science.
posted by General Tonic at 8:51 AM on July 15, 2011
posted by General Tonic at 8:51 AM on July 15, 2011
2010 and 2061. Not 2012.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:31 AM on July 15, 2011
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:31 AM on July 15, 2011
2010 and 2061. Not 2012.
2001? Are you sure?
I thought Lucifer was born at the end of 2012, and the assay of Jupiter/Europa happened in that book.
You're right about the landing on Europa happening in 2061, though. (Awful book that it is).
posted by Leon at 10:25 AM on July 15, 2011
2001? Are you sure?
I thought Lucifer was born at the end of 2012, and the assay of Jupiter/Europa happened in that book.
You're right about the landing on Europa happening in 2061, though. (Awful book that it is).
posted by Leon at 10:25 AM on July 15, 2011
David Brin's Sundiver has all sorts of extra-solar aliens, but features some life forms living in out Sun.
posted by jefftang at 12:56 PM on July 15, 2011
posted by jefftang at 12:56 PM on July 15, 2011
The Gaea Trilogy by John Varley might work for you - it's fiction and mostly adheres to plausibility (if you can accept that Gaea, a sentient "space station" could exist, the rest follows pretty nicely). Start with Titan.
posted by Quietgal at 4:36 PM on July 15, 2011
posted by Quietgal at 4:36 PM on July 15, 2011
Best answer: Asimov's essay "Not As We Know It", in his 1963 book View from a Height, discusses some general ideas on the possibilities of exobiochemistry and such.
Larry Niven's 1968 short story "Wait It Out" has a giant amoeba made of superhelium on Pluto.
Niven also has tool-using Martians living under the dust on Mars, with some speculation about their chemistry, in "Eye of an Octopus" (1966), "How the Heroes Die" (1966), "At the Bottom of a Hole" (1966), Protector (1973), and perhaps others I've forgotten about. (These stories are all in one continuity, so they deal with the same Martians. Unfortunately, in all of them the Martians make only brief appearances.)
Michael Swanwick's "The Very Pulse of the Machine" (1998) imagines an intelligent alien machine on (?) Io, using sulfur as an electrical substrate. (Sulfur is triboelectric!) Not biology per se, but in the ballpark of the kinds of speculation you're after, I think.
Within the solar system, but not extraterrestrial, but still alien: Niven again, "The Green Marauder" (1980), deals with life on Earth before the development of photosynthesis.
posted by stebulus at 5:13 PM on July 15, 2011
Larry Niven's 1968 short story "Wait It Out" has a giant amoeba made of superhelium on Pluto.
Niven also has tool-using Martians living under the dust on Mars, with some speculation about their chemistry, in "Eye of an Octopus" (1966), "How the Heroes Die" (1966), "At the Bottom of a Hole" (1966), Protector (1973), and perhaps others I've forgotten about. (These stories are all in one continuity, so they deal with the same Martians. Unfortunately, in all of them the Martians make only brief appearances.)
Michael Swanwick's "The Very Pulse of the Machine" (1998) imagines an intelligent alien machine on (?) Io, using sulfur as an electrical substrate. (Sulfur is triboelectric!) Not biology per se, but in the ballpark of the kinds of speculation you're after, I think.
Within the solar system, but not extraterrestrial, but still alien: Niven again, "The Green Marauder" (1980), deals with life on Earth before the development of photosynthesis.
posted by stebulus at 5:13 PM on July 15, 2011
Best answer: Oh, and for something completely different: Greg Egan's "Luminous" (1995).
posted by stebulus at 6:12 PM on July 15, 2011
posted by stebulus at 6:12 PM on July 15, 2011
"In the Hall of the Martian Kings" (1977) by John Varley: an expedition to Mars accidentally awakens a dormant biosphere.
There's a brief section near the end of Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter's The Light of Other Days (2000) about an technological civilization that evolved on Earth billions of years ago, and was wiped out by a meteor impact. Not sure if that counts.
Nemesis by Isaac Asimov might also fit your criteria, but only on a technicality.
posted by teraflop at 7:27 PM on July 15, 2011
There's a brief section near the end of Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter's The Light of Other Days (2000) about an technological civilization that evolved on Earth billions of years ago, and was wiped out by a meteor impact. Not sure if that counts.
Nemesis by Isaac Asimov might also fit your criteria, but only on a technicality.
posted by teraflop at 7:27 PM on July 15, 2011
Best answer: Oh, and maybe Peter Watts's Starfish and sequels. (A taste.) It's set on Earth, but there's certainly biological speculation with an unusual climate yielding life-not-quite-as-we-know-it.
posted by stebulus at 7:28 PM on July 15, 2011
posted by stebulus at 7:28 PM on July 15, 2011
Response by poster: Thanks very much to everyone, all interesting answers - lots to check out!
posted by nanojath at 2:42 PM on July 16, 2011
posted by nanojath at 2:42 PM on July 16, 2011
The second and third books of A Time Odyssey, a recent trilogy by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, are partially set on a couple Marses (it's complicated), with complex life.
Also, in the afterword to the third novel, they write:
posted by stebulus at 8:55 PM on January 2, 2012
Also, in the afterword to the third novel, they write:
The science of "astrobiology," the study of the possibility of life beyond the Earth, has been revolutionized in the last few years both [sic] by the discovery of new variants of life on Earth, by the revelation of possible habitats for life either now or in the past on worlds like Mars, Europa, and Titan, and by new models of "panspermia," natural mechanisms by which living things could be transferred between the planets. A recent review is Life as We Do Not Know It by Peter Ward (Viking, 2005).A review or two of that book of Ward's.
posted by stebulus at 8:55 PM on January 2, 2012
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posted by something something at 8:27 AM on July 15, 2011