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So I was reading a few Astronomy books and a couple of them glanced over life on other planets and it got me thinking. What about life in between the planets? In Space itself? We know there are some Earth species that can actually survive the vacuum of space (Tardigrades). So what are the odds do you think of life being in space do you think? After all, Space is equivalently a massive ocean between the landmasses of plants.

The odds are infinitesimally low. Tardigrades may be able to endure extremely hostile environments, but that is not the same as being adapted to thrive in them.

The space/ocean metaphor is romantic but false.

Of course, the metaphor was just there as a picture more than a reality. But you don't think in something the size of space, a species could adapt to a hostile environment of that sort? If a species can endure, then it's a possibility it could adapt given the right circumstances and time.

All our studies on life are hindered by the issue that we've only one planets worth of study to base our concepts off. As a result some of our "its impossible" concepts are really closer to "its not currently possible for Earth evolved life."

That said the biggest issue with space is the distances involved. It's, to my mind, very probable that life could evolve and survive in something like Saturn's rings or Jupiter's vast storms. However travelling the gulf of space between even just worlds is a huge undertaking, not just in the distance involved, not just in the total lack of resources along the way (barring sunlight); but also in the calculations required and visual setup needed to actually arrive somewhere as opposed to nowhere.

Another issue is that whilst a species could evolve that can use sunlight for its only food source; any waste or loss or decay from the creature would be total until it randomly found some other body of mass to consume, accepting that there would only be hard minerals out there if anything.



The distances and the empty nature are what makes interstellar life a very hard thing to achieve; and that's just talking within a solarsystem. Now it could be possible, life does some pretty "impossible" things. However we are well into the realms of where such life would be vastly beyond our experiences and understanding; even more so it if were like the Tyranids and able to breach the gulf of space between worlds (even we can't even work out how to really travel that vast kind of distance).

If there is life in space, it'd needed to eat something. What? There is nothing really in space.
It is not impossible though. As long as there is solar energy it is conceivable that there are some minuscule bacteria or algae-like lifeforms that could form the basis of a food chain.

My personal view is that given the vastness of space (took a few bits of reading to grasp actually how big it is and it's rather humbling), it's probably almost certain that there is life out there. What it is, what it eats, how it functions, etc, I have no idea, but with the trillions upon trillions of stars out there, I find it incredibly hard to believe that there isn't just one which can support life.

Life on other planets - almost certainly. Living in the vacuum? Possibly, but if there is, I imagine it'd be big and very slow and nigh-unrecogniseable.

Abyssal gigantism is space you say? Now that brings up some interesting ideas.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Life on other planets - almost certainly. Living in the vacuum? Possibly, but if there is, I imagine it'd be big and very slow and nigh-unrecogniseable.

Pffft. World Turtles are very recognisable.

 Overread wrote:
All our studies on life are hindered by the issue that we've only one planets worth of study to base our concepts off. As a result some of our "its impossible" concepts are really closer to "its not currently possible for Earth evolved life."

And the only reason we think of Earth as being hospitable for life is because we've spent so much time evolving to survive its attempts to kill us. The first really big mass extinction was caused by an excess of oxygen.

The only way I can see something surviving in the vastness of space is if it also lived on vast timescales and had therefore had little time to evolve, so something very simple. Possibly something that migrates from star to star and hibernates in between them. Possibly some sort of spore or seed dispersal analogy. Seems unlikely though.

There is a lot of evidence to support the claim that life on earth came from space. It could have been just organic material. Or maybe some kind of colonizing primordial life form.

Nothing like what you see in star wars I imagine but...maybe viruses and super dormant single cell organisms I think is reasonable.

 Xenomancers wrote:
There is a lot of evidence to support the claim that life on earth came from space. It could have been just organic material. Or maybe some kind of colonizing primordial life form.

Nothing like what you see in star wars I imagine but...maybe viruses and super dormant single cell organisms I think is reasonable.

That's the theory of transpermia, but more relates to life starting on another planet and then hitching a ride on asteroid (from an impact for example).

Given that we don't know how life started on this planet its difficult to say whether it could start in space. The only thing we can point to is that in some form life needs liquid water. Which to an extent makes sense. Water has a unique chemical structure that can act as a solvent to allow the dispersion of chemicals and so forth. However most in the milky way will be frozen as ice.

Even the most basic cell is a complex set up of chemical atoms and the likelihood that these could congregate in the outer space where even in the most densest dust clouds are even by our atmosphere standards are really diffuse. This is before we take into consideration that cosmic rays/radiation constantly bombard and break up the very complex molecules that are needed for life.

Therefore the likelihood that life can start actually in space is probably very low and much more likely on planets where you can bring the required components together much more easily.

As has been mentioned, life living in space is different from life surviving space.

There is very little in the way of conditions for life, of any kind, if at all.

If Star Trek TOS is to be believed it’s full of energy beings.