ESO Telescope Observes Exoplanet Where It Rains Iron | Hacker News Reader

ESO Telescope Observes Exoplanet Where It Rains Iron

eso.org

73 pointslelf30 comments

"There can't be life anywhere else... everywhere else is too cold for liquid iron, and iron is the only solvent with the unique properties required for..." :)

Life as I understand it seems to require complex molecules or other structures that can store and process information. Are there such things that are stable at temperatures where it rains iron? I don't know of any candidates.

> ...or other structures that can store and process information.

Relay computers can be constructed primarily from iron... relay solenoids, ferrit memory, coils, conductors, contacts... only energy sources seem to need some other elements...

It seems hard to construct relays from liquid iron.

Most computers fail to work above 100 degrees celsius. I've learned that when I investigated a mysterious kernel panic bug on a remote computer... turned out to be a cooling issue.

And insulators as well.

Why would you expect to know of any candidates? It's not like we've done a ton of research into complex polymer chemistry in liquid iron solvents.

I suspect that the internals of stars, somewhere in the photosphere, can contain rather complex structures, due to the very high pressure and electric / magnetic fields. Those could even be a self-sustained "life" in the sense the Conway's game, or maybe even more complex.

Molecular bonds may happen not the only medium supporting simple automata. From them, something more complex has a chance to develop.

... Stainless Steel proteins. Can you fathom proteins made from carbon? They would be very easy to break and unsustainable..

From the chemistry we’re aware of on earth, sure. But I imagine the energies required for our water cycle based life would look astronomical compared to the energies available in a place like Pluto.

This sounds like a cool problem space for computational chemistry.

You say it like that instability is a bad thing.

As Musk might say, if you want to build a robust and efficient factory for complex machines, iterate, iterate, iterate.

Whenever I hear people say they "look for earth-like planets" for life, because life can't exist on planets with conditions 'harmful to life'. (Such as extreme colds), I wonder _why_ they think so.

I'm not educated on the subject, but it seems to me that there's no good reason to think life can't exist in those places simply because we don't live in such a place.

(And, even on earth, there's microbial life in the oddest of places)

It's easier to look for conditions we already know can lead to life.

Not really qualified to answer you, but I commonly read that it boils down to carbon being the base for life on earth, because that material can form complex bonds with so many other elements, without requiring much energy to do so. No other element seems to come close, though another contender is silicon. But if we assume carbon as the base component of other life, we also have to assume similar ranges of temperature etc. for it to thrive.

And from that liquid water is an essential part to all known life on earth. The temperature range needs to be similar to that of Earth for water to exist on the surface.

Silicon chemistry runs slower than carbon chemistry. There's more to it than just assuming carbon.

There's been a lot of work done on alternate biochemistries. Most of the alternate chemistries that look practical are at low temperatures, not high ones, because high temperatures inherently break down complex molecules.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemi..., or look up Cronin's work on metal-based self-replicating structures.

Even if we don't find life on these exoplanets, we're sure to discover some pretty incredible geological wonders. 99% of our geological knowledge is based around events that happen on Earth, and what happens on Earth is just a tiny fraction of what's possible in the universe. Imagine how many Grand Canyons or Mount Everests or Sahara Deserts are just waiting to be discovered

Note that there is a field for this, though it's largely focused on our solar system for obvious reasons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_geology

> we're sure to discover some pretty incredible geological wonders

This is a wonder from a certain perspective, but I'm not sure "the world where you immediately burst into flame and die painfully" can ever really achieve mass appeal.

What type of life do you think out there? Viruses, bacterias, cellular organisms...

Imagine there are giant creatures that enjoy romantic walk under iron rains :D

I was tired of my schlorb, we'd been together too long

Like a worn-out recording, of a favorite song

So while she lay there merping, I read the scannor in bed

And in the personals streamlet, there was this stromling I read

"If you like Paarra Cosanla, and getting caught in the rain

If you're not into yoga, if you have a 20 megaton brain

If you like making love by the twin moons, in the dunes of the cape

I'm the love that you've looked for, strom to me, and escape

If you did that on the spot it is very impressive.

I should have used a different word for Yoga though, that's pretty embarrassing.

Pretty good. Some alternative word for Yoga would help though.

You might want to turn to https://www.instagram.com/nathanwpylestrangeplanet/ for some inspiration.

Awesome. You should write some sci-fi stuff

There is a question I usually ask when I meet new colleagues and want to get to know them better: “If you had a crystal ball and it could answer a single question about the future, the past or the present. What would you ask?”

The most exciting answer I got so far was: “I would ask it to show me life on a another planet.” So cool to imagine...

It'd be quite disappointing to get no response back…

At the very least it might show humans on Mars!

The temperature is too high for "organic molecules", between 2500C (4500F) when it is hot, to 1500C (2700F) when it's cold. (1500C is slightly hotter than the flame of a candle.)

Tungsten has a higher melting point, so perhaps there can be some live metal blobs of weird tungsten alloys, that have some internal parts that are not totally melted and can save some information. We have not seen nothing similar before, and as far as I know nobody expect to see something like that. It would be very very very very very very very very very weird, but I don't like to use the word "impossible".

Reply on news.ycombinator.com