Why Aliens Might Love Their Frozen Home

In the hunt for life beyond Earth, scientists shouldn't skip over frozen planets. In some cases, ice might actually help life evolve!

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[JLocke]

Imagine being one of these creatures trying to convince others that your world is round and that you orbit a star when they are probably convinced that the universe has a ceiling.

[Dick_Gozinya]

The question is not, "can life exist under these conditions?" The question is, "Can life begin under these conditions?"

[a.forbes]

Ice shells also offer far better protection from extinction level events like impacts, nearby gamma bursts or supernovae. So living ecosystems may actually be much more stable with an ice shell ocean world configuration.

[gamingtieofdoom]

Imagine having a mantle completely made from water. That’s insane. That’s really cool

[Brownyman]

Another property of ice important to life is that as water freezes small bubbles of liquid water form within the ice, and as it continues to freeze, those water bubbles become smaller and smaller.

This concentrates dissolved material into smaller spaces. In fact, scientists have witnessed the formation of guanine within water bubbles inside ice.

[Km]

Meanwhile the Aliens at their university: “Earth?! Not likely… it is ungodly hot. No life can be sustained there. Plus, it is riddled with toxic dihydrogen oxide.. unlike our pleasant seas of
You silly, silly.
Now, PLUTO looks promising.. well, it would if it were a planet.. I guess we are alone in the universe after all…. Such is the way, I suppose.”

[DenizenoftheAges]

Science Communication on YouTube, when legit, is on a whole other level than when I was in school. This is amazing. Thanks. ❤️‍🔥🤘

[a.forbes]

The ice shells of water worlds exposed directly to the radiation of space provides a great substrate for producing high energy reactants such as oxygen that gets entrapped in ice and transported to ocean underneath if the ice shell is geologically active like Enceladus, Europa and even Triton.

[molybdaen]

I always preferred the idea of a baren wasteland with no atmosphere where the organism evolved under the surface, living from the energy of the planet core and minerals.

[josgibbons]

Eutectic conditions in ice may also assist abiogenesis if it combines a freeze-thaw cycle with a water-ice boundary, e.g. on the equator of a world that's mostly frozen even in the Summer.

[nightthought]

I have always been confused by the concept of "habitable" being earth-like, for certain shades of earth. It's the ultimate confirmation bias, and one that we humans really need to push against if we are going to engage with a galactic ecology. We have had the most basic of grasps of organic chemistry for minutes of our species existence, and seconds of our planets existence (if we're being generous). The fact that we struggle to form small pockets of environments that are not exactly surface terrestrial, and don't have a strong grasp of the ecology of even that slice of the earth, strongly indicates that we don't even have a keyhole to glimpse through of the potential diversity that a galactic system could support. A sample size of one is not a sample, it's an anecdote.

[sillyjellyfish]

Learning about the potentional existence of underwater ice techtonics wasn't on my today's bingo sheet, but you know what? I'll take it. Cool video as always!

[Nulono]

The alien in the thumbnail: "I do actually have genitals; it's just very cold here."

[terrafirma]

I am stoked about Europa, because if we did find life of any variety... that would trigger a new space race with governments funneling money into studying the new life. It could lead to new medications, economic boons, or just plain ol' prestige and knowledge.

[ebonyblack]

Life may not be anything like what we expect, but we can (for now) assume it obeys the same physics we're familiar with; which means an incredible array of things are possible, but what is probable may be the better question.

[tcarr]

About time! This guy is my favorite nerd!!

[emaarredondo-librarian]

Star Trek's Andorians came from a frozen moon orbiting a gas giant. The white-blue guys with white hair and antennae. Interesting characters, mainly in the series Star Trek Enterprise.
Who knows, maybe some day...

[xephorce]

everyone calls these water worlds but there could be places under the ice with pockets of gas that could provide an environment that isn't just water. just something to think about.

[dmitriytimchuk]

Imagine a world view of a sentient being, liveing in such ocean, without technology to break through the ice shell. I think one of the reasons we know about space and build rockets is that people wondered what are those glowing things up there. But those creatures may not even consider the chance of existince of a whole different universe other than they used to see.
PS: there could be some grammatical mistakes, didn't write in english a little while

[taylorbug]

I've literally never understood why people assumed life would only be on other planets like ours. There is life on Earth that doesn't need the things most living creatures need to survive. There are so many life forms on Earth that are unique in their needs.