THERE IS A curious problem about names in the outer solar system. Many of the objects there have extremely low density, as if they were made of ice, great fluffy snowballs tens or hundreds of miles across. While objects impacting these bodies will certainly produce craters, craters in ice will not last very long. At least for some objects in the outer solar system, named features may be transient. Perhaps that is a good thing: it would give us a chance to revise our opinions of politicians and others, and will give eventual recourse if flushes of national or ideological fervor are reflected in solar system nomenclature. The history of astronomy shows that some suggestions for celestial nomenclature are better ignored. For example, in 1688 Erhard Weigel at Jena proposed a revision of the ordinary zodiacal constellations—the lion, virgin, fish and water carrier that people have in mind when they ask you what “sign” you are. Weigel proposed instead a “heraldic sky” in which the royal families of Europe would be represented by their tutelary animals: a lion and a unicorn for England, for example. I hate to imagine descriptive stellar astronomy today had that idea been adopted in the seventeenth century. The sky would be carved into two hundred tiny patches, one for each nation-state existing at the time.
The naming of the solar system is fundamentally not a task for the exact sciences. It has historically encountered prejudice and jingoism and lack of foresight at every turn. However, while it may be a little early for self-congratulation, I think astronomers have recently taken some major steps to deprovincialize the nomenclature and make it representative of all of humanity. There are those who think it is a pointless, or at least thankless, task. But some of us are convinced it is important. Our remote descendants will be using our nomenclature for their homes: on the broiling surface of Mercury; by the banks of the Martian valleys; on the slopes of Titanian volcanoes; or on the frozen landscape of distant Pluto, where the Sun appears as a point of bright light in a sky of unremitting blackness. Their view of us, of what we cherish and hold dear, may be determined largely by how we name the moons and planets today.
* Kowal has also recently discovered a very interesting small object orbiting the Sun between the orbits of Uranus and Saturn. It may be the largest member of a new asteroid belt. Kowal proposes calling it Chiron, after the centaur who educated many Greek mythological gods and heroes. If other trans-Saturnian asteroids are discovered, they can be named after other centaurs.
CHAPTER 12
LIFE IN THE
SOLAR SYSTEM
“I see nobody on the road,” said Alice.
“I only wish I had such eyes,” the King remarked in a fretful tone. “To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance too! Why, it’s as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!”
LEWIS CARROLL,
Through the Looking Glass
MORE THAN three hundred years ago, Anton van Leeuwenhoek of Delft explored a new world. With the first microscope he viewed a stagnant infusion of hay and was astounded to find it swarming with small creatures:
On April 24th, 1676, observing this water by chance, I saw therein with great wonder unbelievably very many small animalcules of various sorts; among others, some that were three to four times as long as broad. Their entire thickness was, in my judgement, not much thicker than one of the little hairs that cover the body of a louse. These creatures had very short, thin legs in front of the head (although I can recognize no head, I speak of the head for the reason that this part always went forward during movement) … Close to the hindmost part lay a clear globule; and I judged that the very hindmost part was slightly cleft. These animalcules are very cute while moving about, oftentimes tumbling all over.
These tiny “animalcules” had never before been seen by any human being. Yet Leeuwenhoek had no difficulty in recognizing them as alive.
Two centuries later Louis Pasteur developed the germ theory of disease from Leeuwenhoek’s discovery and laid the foundation for much of modern medicine. Leeuwenhoek’s objectives were not practical at all, but exploratory and adventuresome. He himself never guessed the future practical applications of his work.
In May of 1974 the Royal Society of Great Britain held a discussion meeting on “The Recognition of Alien Life.” Life on Earth has developed by a slow, tortuous step-by-step progression known as evolution by natural selection. Random factors play a critical role in this process—as, for example, which gene at what time will be mutated or changed by an ultraviolet photon or a cosmic ray from space. All the organisms on Earth are exquisitely adapted to the vagaries of their natural environments. On some other planet, with different random factors operating and extremely exotic environments, life may have evolved very differently. If we landed a spacecraft on the planet Mars, for example, would we even be able to recognize the local life forms as alive?
One theme which was stressed at the Royal Society discussion was that life elsewhere should be recognizable by its improbability. Take trees, for example. Trees are long skinny structures, above ground fatter at the top than at the bottom. It is easy to see that after millennia of rubbing by wind and water, most trees should have fallen down. They are in mechanical disequilibrium. They are unlikely structures. Not all top-heavy structures are produced by biology. There are, for example, pedestal rocks in deserts. But were we to see a great many top-heavy structures, all closely similar, we could make a reasonable guess that they were of biological origin. Likewise for Leeuwenhoek’s animalcules. There are many of them, closely similar, highly complex and improbable in the extreme. Without ever having seen them before, we correctly guess they are biological.
There have been elaborate debates on the nature and definition of life. The most successful definitions invoke the evolutionary process. But we do not land on another planet and wait to see if any nearby objects evolve. We do not have the time. The search for life then takes on a much more practical aspect. This point was brought out with some finesse at the Royal Society discussion when, after an exchange remarkable for its rambling metaphysical vagueness, Sir Peter Medawar rose to his feet and said, “Gentlemen, everyone in this room knows the difference between a live horse and a dead horse. Pray, therefore, let us cease flogging the latter.” Medawar and Leeuwenhoek would have seen eye to eye.
But are there trees or animalcules on the other worlds of our solar system? The simple answer is that no one yet knows. From the vantage point of the nearest planets, it would be impossible to detect photographically the presence of life on our own planet. Even from the closest orbital observations of Mars made to date, from the American spacecraft Mariner 9 and Viking 1 and 2, details on Mars much smaller than 100 meters across have remained invisible. Since even the most ardent enthusiasts of extraterrestrial life do not anticipate Martian elephants 100 meters long, many important tests have not yet been performed.
At the present time we can only assess the physical environments of the other planets, determine whether they are so severe as to exclude life—even forms rather different from those we know on Earth—and in the case of the more clement environments perhaps speculate on the life forms that might be present. The one exception is the Viking lander results, briefly discussed below.
A place may be too hot or too cold for life. If the temperatures are very high—say, several thousands of degrees Centigrade—then the molecules that make up the organism will fall to pieces. Thus it is customary to exclude the Sun as an abode of life. On the other hand, if the temperatures are too low, then the chemical reactions that drive the internal metabolism of the organism will proceed at too ponderous a pace. For this reason the frigid wastes of Pluto are customarily excluded as an abode of life. However, there may be chemical reactions which proceed at respectable rates at low temperatures but which are unexplored here on Earth, where chemists dislike working in laboratories at −230°C. We must be careful not to take too chauvinistic a view of the matter.
The giant outer planets of the solar system, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, are sometimes excluded from biological cons
iderations because their temperatures are very low. But these temperatures are the temperatures of their upper clouds. Deeper down in the atmospheres of such planets, as in the atmosphere of the Earth, much more clement conditions are to be encountered. And they appear to be rich in organic molecules. By no means can they be excluded.
While we human beings enjoy oxygen, this is hardly a recommendation for it, since there are many organisms that are poisoned by it. If the thin protective ozone layer in our atmosphere, made by sunlight from oxygen, did not exist, we would rapidly be fried by ultraviolet light from the Sun. But on other worlds, ultraviolet sunshades or biological molecules impervious to near-ultraviolet radiation can readily be imagined. Such considerations merely underline our ignorance.
An important distinction among the other worlds of our solar system is the thickness of their atmospheres. In the total absence of an atmosphere it is very difficult to conceive of life. As on Earth, the biology on other planets must, we think, be driven by sunlight. On our planet, the plants eat the sunlight and the animals eat the plants. Were all the organisms on Earth forced (by some unimaginable catastrophe) into a subterranean existence, life would cease as soon as accumulated food stores were exhausted. The plants, the fundamental organisms on any planet, must see the Sun. But if a planet has no atmosphere, not only ultraviolet radiation but X-rays and gamma rays and charged particles from the solar wind will fall unimpeded on the planetary surface and frizzle the plants.
Furthermore, an atmosphere is necessary for exchange of materials so that the basic molecules for biology are not all used up. On Earth, for example, green plants give off oxygen—a waste product—into the atmosphere. Many respiring animals, like human beings, breathe the oxygen and give off carbon dioxide, which the plants in turn imbibe. Without this clever (and painfully evolved) equilibrium between plants and animals, we would rapidly run out of oxygen or carbon dioxide. For these two reasons—radiation protection and molecular exchange—an atmosphere seems required for life.
Some of the worlds in our solar system have exceedingly thin atmospheres. Our Moon, for example, has at its surface less than one million millionth the atmospheric pressure on Earth. Six places on the near side of the Moon were examined by Apollo astronauts. No top-heavy structures, no lumbering beasts were found. Nearly four hundred kilograms of samples have been returned from the Moon and meticulously examined in terrestrial laboratories. There were no animalcules, no microbes, almost no organic chemicals, or even any water. We expected the Moon to be lifeless, and apparently it is. Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun, resembles the Moon. Its atmosphere is exceedingly thin, and it ought not to support life. In the outer solar system there are many large satellites the size of Mercury or our own Moon, composed of some mix of rock (like the Moon and Mercury) and ices. Io, the second moon of Jupiter, falls into this category. Its surface seems to be covered with a kind of reddish salt deposit. We are very ignorant about it. But because of its very low atmospheric pressure, we do not expect life on it.
Then there are planets with moderate atmospheres. Earth is the most familiar example. Here life has played a major role in determining the composition of our atmosphere. The oxygen is, of course, produced by green-plant photosynthesis, but even the nitrogen is thought to be made by bacteria. Oxygen and nitrogen together comprise 99 percent of our atmosphere, which has evidently been reworked on a massive scale by the life on our planet.
The total pressure on Mars is about one half of one percent that on Earth, but the atmosphere there is composed largely of carbon dioxide. There are small quantities of oxygen, water vapor, nitrogen and other gases. The Martian atmosphere has not obviously been reworked by biology, but we do not know Mars well enough to exclude life there. It has congenial temperatures at some times and places, a dense enough atmosphere, and abundant water locked away in the ground and polar caps. Even some varieties of terrestrial microorganisms can survive there very well. Mariner 9 and Viking found hundreds of dry riverbeds, apparently Indicating a time in the recent geological history of the planet when abundant liquid water flowed. It is a world awaiting exploration.
A third and less familiar example of places with moderate atmospheres is Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. Titan appears to have an atmosphere with a density between that of Mars and Earth. This atmosphere is, however, composed largely of hydrogen and methane, and is surmounted by an unbroken layer of reddish clouds—probably complex organic molecules. Because of its remoteness, Titan has attracted the interest of exobiologists only recently, but it holds the promise of a long-term fascination.
The planets with very dense atmospheres present a special problem. Like Earth, their atmospheres are cold at the top and warmer at the bottom. But when the atmosphere is very thick, the temperatures at the bottom become too hot for biology. In the case of Venus, the surface temperatures are about 480°C; for the Jovian planets, many thousands of degrees Centigrade. All these atmospheres, we think, are convective, with vertical winds vigorously carrying materials both up and down. Life probably cannot be imagined on their surfaces because of the high temperatures. The cloud environments are perfectly clement, but convection will carry hypothetical cloud organisms down to the depth and fry them there. There are two obvious solutions. There might be small organisms that reproduce as fast as they are carried down to the planetary skillet or the organisms might be buoyant. Fish on Earth have float bladders for a similar purpose, and both on Venus and on the Jovian planets, organisms that are essentially hydrogen-filled balloons can be envisioned. For them to float at modest temperatures on Venus, they need to be at least a few centimeters across, but for the same purpose on Jupiter, they must be at least meters across—the size of ping-pong balls and meteorological balloons, respectively. We do not know that such beasts exist, but it is of some little interest to see that they can be envisioned without doing violence to what is known of physics, chemistry or biology.
Our profound ignorance of whether other planets harbor life may end within this century. Plans are now afoot for the chemical and biological examination of many of these candidate worlds. The first step was the American Viking missions, which landed two sophisticated automatic laboratories on Mars in the summer of 1976, almost three hundred years to the month of Leeuwenhoek’s discovery of hay infusoria. Viking found no curious structures nearby (or sauntering by) which were top-heavy, and no detectable organic molecules. Of three experiments in microbial metabolism, two in both landing sites repeatedly gave what seemed to be positive results. The implications are still under vigorous debate. In addition, we must remember that the two Viking landers examined closely, even with photography, less than one millionth of the surface area of the planet. More observations—particularly with more sophisticated instrumentation (including microscopes) and with roving vehicles—are needed. But despite the ambiguous nature of the Viking results, these missions represent the first time in the history of the human species that another world has been seriously examined for life.
In the following decades it is likely that there will be buoyant probes into the atmospheres of Venus, Jupiter and Saturn, and landers on Titan, as well as more detailed studies of the surface of Mars. A new age of planetary exploration and exobiology dawned in the seventh decade of the twentieth century. We live in a time of adventure and high intellectual excitement; but also—as the step from Leeuwenhoek to Pasteur shows—in the midst of an endeavor which promises great practical benefits.
CHAPTER 13
TITAN,
THE ENIGMATIC MOON
OF SATURN
On Titan, warmed by a hydrogen blanket,
ice-ribbed volcanoes jet ammonia
dredged out of a glacial heart. Liquid
and frozen assets uphold an empire
bigger than Mercury, and even a little
like primitive Earth: asphalt plains and hot
mineral ponds. But
how I’d like to take the waters of Titan, under
that fume-ridden
sky,
where the land’s blurred by cherry mist
and high above, like floating wombs,
clouds
tower and swarm, raining down primeval
bisque, while life waits in the wings.
DIANE ACKERMAN,
The Planets (New York, Morrow, 1976)
TITAN IS NOT a household word, or world. We do not usually think of it when we run through a list of familiar objects in the solar system. But in the last few years this satellite of Saturn has emerged as a place of extraordinary interest and prime significance for future exploration. Our most recent studies of Titan have revealed that it has an atmosphere more like the Earth’s—at least in terms of density—than any other object in the solar system. This fact alone gives it new significance as the exploration of other worlds begins in earnest.
Besides being the largest satellite of Saturn, Titan is also, according to recent work by Joseph Veverka, James Elliot and others at Cornell University, the largest satellite in the solar system—about 5,800 kilometers (3,600 miles) in diameter. Titan is larger than Mercury and nearly as large as Mars. And yet there it is in orbit around Saturn.