Expert: Jayendra Upadhye - 6/9/2005

Question
In the water in neptune, could there be sea creatures living there? Is it scientifically possible? And what other planets have water?

Answer
Hi Kirstine,
One must say with some truth..that water is on all planets! Because it existed in the cloud out of which the solar system condensed.
However the question is of degree..of how much and where.
Certainly Mars had it as abundant as the earth but lost it due to the freezing of its core and loss of its magnetic field.
On neptune and on some satellites of the gas giants, it is more abundant.
Pluto is thought to have a surface made ice due to its low albedo (surface reflectivity) and high density. It behaves as a highly polished ball of ice, that reflects very little sunlight "back" to the viewer. Thus its percievd "small" size and volume and calculated "comparatively larger" actual mass yield a big density figure.
Kirstine, Let me not be like the men of old who thought the earth was center of all things. We are like those men when we say "life exists only on earth"! For we reach the conclusion that life "has to be like us" in order to be called life at all.
This self centered vision need not be true at all.
After seeing the tanacious hold life has one the planet, ..it has survived multiple large scale extinctions..only to bounce back with renewed vigour..one is forced to conclude that given the slightest chance, (stable set of environmental conditions)..life evolves and fills that niche.

Afterall we find life in the darkest of the dark subterranean caves, in the deepest depths of the oceans near hot volcanic vents, in the coolest of arctic waters, and ofcourse in the skies too.

These indications should be enough to give us the general picture.
We may find life under all circumstances where complex organic molecules can form, and where stable environmental conditions exist.

If there are areas (no one knows so we perforce give benefit of doubt) under neptunes atmosphere that are like our horse latitudes areas of calm and where liquid water is around, and where the temperatures are arctic to sahara levels, we may hope to expect "strange new" (to us) life forms!

For didnt some one say.."truth is stranger than fiction"?
Jayen