Monsters and Exoplanets

The other day, I chanced upon some illustrations of monsters from the 16th Century via Ulisse Aldrovandi’s History of Monsters (Monstrorum historia). I noticed that these "monsters" were often a mix of land, air, and sea creatures (hybrids), and that the monster characteristics are attuned to the properties of planet earth, of course. But the point is this: As residents of earthworld, humanity has only known the usual land, air and sea environments as we evolved consciousness. And as such, these characteristic environments reflected in the kinds of creatures and monsters that our primal minds conjured from our imagination.

Now, what if the human psyche gets imbued with knowledge of new worlds? And what if we've come to learn of new types of planets, not just the usual terrestrial mix of land and sea that we’ve come to know of?

How will knowledge of new worlds create new mythical creatures from mankind's deepest imagination? Will a new mythos emerge from a new form of exoplanetary consciousness? Do we need to occupy a new planet in order to actually create new myths and legends specific to that planet?

I'm on the lookout for new archetypes of "monsters" that must come out from this era of exoplanets. Sure, it's all just aliens, aliens, aliens. I'm sick and tired of aliens. But although i'm a big fan of Science fiction, I realize that something new should come out from a new level of consciousness brought about by the fact that our planet Earth is just one among an infinite variety of worlds. Can our new generation of imaginative writers create new mythic creatures a la the Lovecraftian Cthulhu or The Great Race of Yith but with a unique exoplanetary twist?

What types of monsters will the modern man come up aside from the cliche of invading aliens, alien-human hybrids, disguised aliens, superhero aliens, artificially-intelligent aliens, and so on? Or are these alien-monster archetypes prevalent in popular culture the final set of otherworldly monsters that our minds can ever come up with? Are they all we can ever have?

Let me know if you have some leads regarding this inquiry. You can reply to me via twitter, or simply comment on this post.

Links:

History of Monsters

The Logarithmic Map of the Universe [ stars with known exoplanets highlighted ]

Just a quick post to highlight the presence of markers for the known exoplanets within this "Logarithmic Map of the Universe". The stars with known exoplanets are in the middle part of the strip. [ click the links below to access other resolutions of the map ]

In a quick glance, this map gives an idea about how far away our currently known exoplanets are, compared with other objects in the known universe.

For example, you can see that OGLE 2003-BLG-235 is the farthest from earth, and the one closest to the center of the Milky Way compared with other known exoplanet-hosting stars.

The logarithmic property of the map is best understood by taking note of the labels on the left side of the map, where the units increase from kilometers, to AU, to parsec, to kiloparsec, all the way to megaparsec--from the bottom-up of the long strip of map, to denote the distances when you look up the sky as you stand on the surface of the earth.

Links:
Logarithmic Maps of the Universe
Going Up? (Starts with a Bang)

On Gravity and Bones: Planetary Effects upon Humans on Other Worlds

Here's a follow up to my streak of posts that bring into focus some planetary insights gained from the gaming world.

I noticed that the physique of the protagonist Marcus Fenix is burly and juggernaut-thick. The same is true for the other characters of Gears of War. The sizes of their thighs is as big as huge logs.

Now why is that so? Allow me to propose my own hypothesis. The planet they're standing on must be slightly more massive than earth. The 26-hour day of planet Sera is another clue. Sera could be a super-earth! And we all know that bigger and more massive planets exert more gravity, which means more weight bearing down on its inhabitants. And being heavier means you need bigger bones and powerful muscles to support your weight and stand upright. Thus, you need bigger limbs on Planet Sera. This could probably explain why their nemesis, the Locust Hordes (presumed to be the indigenous natives on that planet) also come with grossly huge legs and wide arms.

Of course, in this post I particularly want to highlight the fact that a creature's physique is directly influenced by its home planet’s gravity, among other things. In contrast, a planet that has a lesser surface gravity than earth might produce animals that are taller and skinnier compared to earthlings.

So, if we ever start sending humans to settle on Mars, I’m sure that the second or third generation of marsian-humans who are born there will grow to be taller and less massive than their predecessors. While the first pioneering batch would probably suffer muscle degeneration and bone loss due to the fact that the surface gravity of Mars is only 38% of Earth's gravity. You'd feel approximately three times lighter on Mars! If you were 100 lbs on earth, you'd weigh only 38 lbs on Mars. So unless earthborn human colonists strap on weights and exercise a lot to counteract the effects of Mars’ feebler gravity, humans in its present form won’t stand a chance colonizing another world.

No, don't consider that last statement as a discouragement. Consider that as an incentive and a planetary challenge for us to find new ways to be human.

Humans on other worlds.

Links:
What if Earth Were Twice as Big?
Planet Sera (on Freebase)
Planet Sera (On Gears of War Wiki)

Exoplanetary Worms

As your emissary, I have gone to great lengths to bring you exographical discoveries from alien worlds. I even went to war just so I could report about exobiological creatures that I will encounter on my otherworldly adventures.

Of course, in my terms, “otherworldy” include the virtual realms of gaming. So today, I bring you exoworms from Gears of War! But first, here's some background info.

Recently on Earth, a species of extremophilic nematode worms (named Halicephalobus mephisto, after Mephistopheles, a nickname for the Devil) were discovered deep below the South African mines. It's the first multicellular organism to be found at such depths. The discovery challenged the assumption that deep subsurface ecosystems cannot support multi-cellular lifeforms because everyone assumed that underground environments several miles deep are too hostile because of the pressure, hot temperatures, and lack of oxygen and space.

Now scientists are saying that it may have implications in the search for life on other planets. And I couldn’t agree more! Especially when this discovery comes at the perfect time when I was slogging through the Gears of War series (on a tight deadline to prepare myself for the final installment to its trilogy).

That’s why after hearing the news of the 'devil' worms, I was distracted when I encountered the rockworms and riftworms in Gears of War. In the game's backstory set on an earth-like planet Sera, these riftworms were used by the nemesis Locust Horde to burrow directly underneath the cities of human colonies to sink them. Then I liked that these rockworms eat some bioluminiscent substance--which was subtly incorporated in the gameplay.

Suddenly, I began to think that exoplanetary worms aren’t so far-fetched anymore, especially when I remember the fact that the ancient animals here on earth were giants compared to their sizes now. (Ancient ants used to be the size of a hummingbird!)

In that regard, I would advise future human colonists to check deep underground before setting up their colonies on other planets.

That's all for now. Frag out!

Links:
Deep-Earth devil worms

The Titan Mines of Dead Space, and Science within Videogames

Last week, I had the utmost pleasure of viewing Saturn from several astronomer's powerful telescopes along the sidewalks of Highline Park in NYC, thanks to the members of Amateur Astronomer's Association (AAA). As I peered through the eyepiece of one of the refracting telescopes aimed at Saturn, I gasped at the tiny point of light near the the left tip of the inclined rings of Saturn. It was Titan.

There's something magical about getting a glimpse of a faraway place with your own eyes, especially when one has immersed within the virtual representation of that place. Right then and there, I knew that I had to post something about Titan and what i think of videogames as it intersects with reality.

The setting of the first Dead Space was inside a planetcracker mining ship called the Ishimura orbiting around an exoplanet named Aegis VII. But on its second release, the setting is on Sprawl, a city on a shard of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon.

The reasons for not going exoplanetary was explained in-game which I happened to capture during my foray into its narrative.

"Shockpoint drives were in their infancy, so extrasolar mining was out of the question--and the dangers of planetcracking were still unknown."

Despite being dismayed at DeadSpace2 being less than interstellar, it didn’t stop me from playing this wonderfully horrific game. In heart-thumping fashion I’ve finished its single-player campaign twice and reached Level 60 in multiplayer mode inspite of my horrible k/d ratio. (Note: i don't care about k/d ratio)

Apparently, in Dead Space 2’s multiplayer mode, there is a map called “Titan Mines” so it always reminds me of one of the most exotic worlds in our solar system.

Titan has liquid methane on its surface, with a nitrogen atmosphere sprinkled with some ethane clouds and nitrogen-rich organic smog. However, none of these things were depicted in the game. The reason is that in the story, Titan has been dismembered into shards of rock by the planetcracker mining ship. So most of the action happens inside a tightly-controlled environment of the Sprawl.

The cold, freezing temperatures on Titan makes me wonder how the necromorphs would survive, until I remembered that the Titan Mines map setting is an underground mine. So silly me (again) the environment is tightly-controlled. Too bad for the science behind it--there isn't much. This is my complaint about Dead Space.

I wish more videogames would employ more science behind their settings. Mass Effect has done a great part in mixing ample astrophysics into their story, but we need more games to engage people in indirect learning. As technology becomes more and more powerful, and games strive to immerse gamers even more--the initiative to model reality will make Science an integral part of the gaming world.

Links:
Titan-like Exoplanets
Are there more Titans than Earths in the Milky Way?
Titan: Callisto with the weather
Sailing the Titan Seas
Aegis VII on Freebase

What it means to be "outside" our solar system

What started innocently enough as a single tweet (or retweet) led me to investigate further what is considered as being "outside" our solar system. Being "exo", so to speak.

So I wrote about it in a different process which employed a story-like way of presenting it. I tried storify and I found the process quite pleasing. It somehow aids the process of writing in a different way. It looks like I might utilize storify more in the future. I hope you'll enjoy the result of my quick investigation via twitter and storify which is embedded below.

Videogames and Exoplanets

So you've heard that planets are more numerous than stars? That discovery is mind-blowing by itself, but even more fascinating is how that exogasmic discovery was made. Dig deep into the technology behind Gravitational Microlensing and you’ll find out something playfully interesting; A graphics card originally intended for videogames was used to discover the rogue planets!

A member of the astrophysics team named Joe Ling has turned his love of computer games into a way of discovering the wandering planets in our galaxy. He took a $400 gaming graphics card and wired it into the team's computer, which sped up the process known as microlensing modelling.

Without the gaming card it would take hundreds of computers and cost thousands of dollars; and it would take one month to process on a normal desktop computer. But with the graphics processing unit inside the gaming card it only takes six hours.

Gaming not only inspires imagination and creativity, it's also a source of technological marvels as it constantly strives for deeper levels of immersion. No wonder I've been rekindling the joy of immersing myself into the virtual worlds of videogames even more. And I often find myself reflecting and realizing that there is no difference between "virtual" and "real". The intersection of Videogames and Exoplanet Science is just one proof of that metaphysical fact.



Links:
Planets Outnumber Stars
Intersection of Videogames and Exoplanet Science
Videogames: A Path to Reflection and Self-enlightenment (Kill Screen)

Planets Outnumber Stars

The idea that galaxies are littered with wandering planets is truly exogasmic. For quite some time I’ve been wondering whether planets outnumber the stars. Then the answer came which truly blew my mind away.

Evidence has been revealed that rogue planets--unbound exoplanets that do not orbit any star--are so numerous that they outnumber the stars!

Using the method called Gravitational Microlensing, it has been estimated that 400 billion rogue planets roam the Milky Way. Take note, the estimate does not include all the exoplanets that are hosted by stars, and does not even count rocky exoworlds that are less massive than Jupiter. And remember that this comes after the fact that red dwarf stars were found to be more numerous than previously thought. Add them all and you've got gazillions of exoplanets in the cosmos!

Do you remember when Carl Sagan mentioned that the stars outnumber the grains of sand on all the beaches in the world? Well, perhaps we need a new metaphor that includes not just the beach but the desert as well. Because planets outnumber all the grains of sand on Earth!

Links:
Rogue Planets (Centauri Dreams)
Milky Way Harbors Billiions of Orphaned Planets (AstroBob)
Unbound or Distant Planetary Mass Population Detected by Gravitational Microlensing (arXiv)

The Immer and the Out: A Review of Embassytown

Humans breathing off gasses from aeoli. Animals as sources of energy. Zelles that perspire electricity. Living biorigged tools and weapons. Beasts that defecate fuel. A town in the middle of an alien city. Welcome to the world of Embassytown.

On another world, comes a living city that straddles between the immer and the out. And from it comes a bagful of new words: biorigging, terretech, shiftparents, floaking, miab, autom, immer, sopor, augmen, exot, trunc, curio, biopolis, citynaut.

Never have I seen so many chopped words in a single novel (such as ‘autom’ which my brain tries to complete as ‘automata’) and never have I seen so many new ones invented from cropped words.

Clearly, China Miéville had so much fun treating words like lego. Names weren't spared of this cut-half practice. After seeing so many names of characters being chopped into two constituents, I ended up doing the same thing to my name. I imagined each syllable as coming from each of the two hemispheres of my brain.

I swear I had no previous knowledge of Embassytown when I posted my inquiry about Exonoology. It was a few days later after I read that review by Ursula K. Le Guin that my ears, or fanwings, perked up. I suspected Embassytown had something to do with Xenoology.

Many science fiction stories may give you some pause as to how otherworldly beings think. But Embassytown explores the alien mind, their nuos, in relation to language and the symbols that come with it.

I remember my previous encounter with speculative biology such as that which I think comes from Alastair Reynolds; an alien reads by looking at two sets of symbols simultaneously from two different eyes. The information from each eye is merged by the alien mind to comprehend what was written.

We humans do the same thing for stereoscopic vision to perceive depth. But Mieville’s Embassytown takes it further in the domain of language. The Arieken 'words' are meant to be spoken simultaneously in a method called cut+half. Represented as fractions of words instead of numbers.

The alien hosts' communicative physiology is where the story started to build upon the conceptual level that connects Language with how the Ariekies perceive the world.

Simile was used to highlight the fact that metaphor influences how we think. To the aliens, simile is an actual living human that they need to reference in order to speak/think. That's where the protagonist's role comes in, Avice Benner Cho, an immerser-human.

Another class of humans are called the Ambassadors, the intermediary for communicating with the Arieken hosts. The ambassadors remind me of the conjoined twins who share brains. Each sibling can 'hear' or perceive the thoughts of the other, which makes me wonder whether their physiology can allow the to fuse into one consciousness, one mind, if they wanted to.

And the Ariekene hosts' Language is spoken from two vocal holes simultaneously (imagine talking and farting at the same time). Language for the Ariekei was both speech and thought. Truth. Hence they cannot lie.

Embassytown is cognitively engaging and it is a pure win as a soft scifi novel, and perhaps as an interstitial one, too. However, it could've been better. I longed for Mieville to describe more of the planet Areike, or more worlds from out of the immer for that matter.

At times, Mieville's writing has become difficult to read. I had to squint and re-read some passages twice. I had the feeling that Mieville himself was speaking Ariekan language (or got influenced by it).

Nevertheless, the novel is worth reading as it is very rich with metaphors and subliminal underpinnings. For a moment, I could glimpse conceptual references with the Bible (and the mode of reading it), starting with a character named EzRa. In short, if you enjoy thinking deep into concepts, then by all means, read this novel.

All in all, I love the novel's immer and the out, to which I can relate because Exoplanetology is all about the "out" and being immersed in the immer of otherworldliness. As such, Embassytown is a great work from an author who is now beginning to explore the science and the fiction of new worlds.

To Never Come Back

As a young boy, I cried whenever my balloon slipped out of my hands. With arms outstretched, and in tears, I hopelessly watched my balloon disappear into the clouds, wishing it would come back to me.

But now I was amazed when I saw my son intentionally let go of his balloons one by one, overjoyed by each launch. He giggles in joy as he watches them fly ever higher. And then he stands in silence as they fly out of sight in the blue expanse of the sky, imagining all the places it would go.

This striking contrast of attitude between two young boys a whole generation apart has dug up the concept of Interstellar Cyclers which I have read some time ago.

Interstellar Cyclers are starships that travel around in wide circles, lightyears in diameter, spanning multiple stars, that eventually comes back to their starting point for another round trip. This idea was fueled by the contention that "accelerating a starship, only to decelerate it again, is pure lunacy" as Karl Schroeder puts it in his essay. Thus he proposed what he unambiguously called 'Schroeder Cyclers', a starship that is "initially accelerated from the Earth or a colony star to some percentage of lightspeed, and then eventually serve as a way-station for travellers, who embark and disembark at star systems it passes along its route."

I was interested in the idea at first (which is a good idea in its own right), but later realized that I personally would prefer that the whole thing rather not go back. After I witnessed the scene of my little boy staring at his balloon disappearing into the clouds--the idea of accelerating a starship only to come back at its starting point became unthinkable. I realized that it was more evocative to see a starship leave, and know outright that it will never come back. It would go in a straight line, using all it's energy to accelerate ever faster, further, and farther into the great unknown.

It can, and will, still serve as a way-station, after accomplishing its cargo drop-off missions during flybys near other star systems. Among other things, it will also serve as a Subluminal Research Lab, but ultimately it will become a relic to be visited by future generations who would have, by then, developed more advanced technology to catch up with it, upgrade and maintain it, and then overtake it to continue the process of pushing the boundaries of space exploration.

That, to me is a true 'generation starship', a symbol of that spirit of exploration that will endlessly inspire the next generation to continue pushing onwards to the edge of the great unknown.

Links:
A New Kind of Starship
Cyclers: Transportation Network Among the Stars

Exoplanets, Extremophiles and other Kinds of Minds

Just a few days after I wrote a highly-speculative post outlining the relationship of lifeforms and planets, and the intriguing link between what other kinds of minds are possible for specific characteristics of planets--along comes these findings of bacteria that feel at home with hypergravity.

In the experiment, researchers spun E. coli and other bacteria in an ultacentrifuge and revved it up to its fastest speed, amounting up to something like 400,000 Gs. The bacteria not only lived through the "hypergravity" experience, they even reproduced.

So, on planetary scales, I can say that these bacteria can survive on the surface of a white dwarf with the same spherical size as earth but with the mass equivalent to the sun. The gravitational force on its surface is somewhere around 300,000 G.

So if I was beamed down (a la Star Trek) onto the surface of a cool white dwarf, upon materializing I would immmediately be crushed into a pancake-shaped goo. But some of the bacteria inhabiting my body will still survive the crushing gravity! And if some other conditions permitted (let's be generous by adding oxygen into the atmosphere, aside from temperate other imaginings), they will feed on my jello'ed body and who knows what will evolve from that mass of goo? Let’s settle on “flat” beings for now, by virtue of the flattening gravity of a white dwarf.

Now, “flat” beings with 2.5-dimensional brains wouldn’t evolve much cognitive capacity compared with other brains whose neurons utilize the 3 dimensions of space to connect and communicate with other neurons. Each of our brain’s neurons has an average of 7,000 synaptic connections with other neurons. Clearly, a flat-brained creature on a white dwarf would have a disadvantage over it’s counterparts from earth. But not so if it’s neurons are utilizing wi-fi! Yes, its still highly speculative but there’s been a study outlining the possibility of some bacteria-signaling via radio frequency. If this biomechanism works on another planet, the 7,000 synaptic "wired" connections of a human brain would pale in comparison with a creature whose 'neurons' work in wireless mode to process information collectively with other neurons. What kind of thoughts would it have?

Now, these two possible characteristics of microbial life--hypergravity survival and radio wave communications--that I've mentioned in this post are completely unrelated. I’ve simply fused them in a hypothetical scenario in a playful attempt to mash-up planetary characteristics with extreme-life biomechanisms to speculate on expanding the possibilities of life on other worlds. Rev up your imagination and try it yourself. It's actually fun!

With all the new findings on extremophiles, which comes at a perfect timing with new exoplanet discoveries, we are opening up a lot of incredible possibilities for the mind to speculate about life in other parts of the universe.

Links:
Alien Bacteria can Breed in Extreme Hypergravity
Electromagnetic Signals from Bacterial DNA (PDF)
From Planets To Consciousness: Other Kinds of Minds

Mergerburst

I love words that come from Astrophysics. A new one I learned today is "mergerburst". For that cinematic feel, make sure you pronounce it with an evil tone and a malevolent face, because a mergerburst is a highly-destructive event on a planetary scale.

This post is specifically about a BD-Planet mergerburst, the destruction of a planet by a brown dwarf (BD). When a massive planet approaches a brown dwarf, the poor planet will be tidally destroyed or shredded as it "merges" with a much-denser brown dwarf. The mayhem will form a luminous accretion disk around the brown dwarf that will stay for around a few days, which should be observable, distinct, and identifiable from other mergerbursts such as Star−Planet Mergerbursts, and Planet−Planet Mergerbursts.

Factoid: The existence of Brown dwarfs (BD) were predicted in 1963, and was termed as "black dwarfs" back then.

Links:
MERGERBURST TRANSIENTS OF BROWN DWARFS WITH EXOPLANETS (PDF)