Exoplanets, Tardigrades, and Earth's Carbon Dioxide: A Thought Experiment
"We are not the Enemy of Nature, but It's Salvation." —Patrick Moore, London, October 2015
Today’s post is a speculative journey—a thought experiment—to explore the possible history of carbon dioxide on planet Earth from a fresh new angle.
We’ll attempt to make a connection between CO2 and the recent discovery of exoplanets, introduce you to the mysterious creatures known as tardigrades, explain what Oumuamua is and why it matters, touch on the Fermi Paradox, introduce you to Patrick Moore and his presentations involving historical concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), and then tie all of these apparently disparate topics together into an enlightening thought experiment.
The main goal is to view this question from a new perspective: What should our level of concern actually be about rising levels of atmospheric CO2? Is the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide a problem—or is it possibly an intended, desirable outcome?
Perhaps we’re looking at the phenomenon in completely the wrong way; and perhaps the climate alarmists are trying to solve a non-problem with fundamentally bad and misguided policy (as if spending more money by Congress—as well as the hot air created by their bloviations—can ever lower the temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere, anyway.)
The timing is appropriate to consider possible alternative viewpoints about CO2; as @EthicalSkeptic (TES) has been writing about for months on Twitter, the current AGW (anthropogenic global warming) computer models that assume man-made CO2 emissions are the primary driver of 2023’s excessive and anomalous Sea Surface Temperatures all over the globe have actually been proven fatally flawed by the sudden rate of warming.
Physics tells us this sudden and sharp heat arrival cannot have been the result of “global warming” induced by CO2. (TES proposes it could be the result of abyssal ocean heat caused by exothermic reactions from the Earth’s core.)
2023 is shaping up to be a test of AGW theory—and as TES points out, it has failed to predict what is now occurring.
“I would rather have questions that can't be answered than answers that can't be questioned.” —Richard Feynman
As @AleksandrSolzh4 (Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn) tweets in response to TES:
“It is with an almost unreal level of irony that TOO MUCH warming happening TOO QUICKLY will be the undoing of the AGW carbon crowd.”
Anyhow, let’s start our journey today with some of this as context.
We’ll begin our story in 17th century England, take a detour out to Alpha Centauri, and then double back and streak like a comet toward our home planet, Earth.
Sound like fun? Strap in!
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To lay the groundwork for later, let’s start with Isaac Newton. The year was 1665, and Newton, one of the most brilliant minds to have ever lived, was studying the behavior of light at Cambridge University in England.
He would go on to invent Calculus and propose what we now call Newton’s three Laws of Motion, while also coming up with the first mathematically rigorous description of how gravity can account for the motions of the planets. An extraordinary genius, that Isaac.
That summer day, Newton had allowed a pinhole of light to come through his window shutters into a darkened room, and using a glass prism, discovered that white light is made up of a blend of all of the colors of the spectrum. From his observations and calculations, he began to deduce why the prism works that way.
A prism delays (refracts) the transmission of various wavelengths (colors) of light differently—a blend of wavelengths of light are ordinarily all mixed together to make up what we call white light—and as these waves travel through the glass, they bend to more or less of a degree. The result is that the colors spread out, becoming “unmixed.” They can then be seen in the now familiar rainbow pattern—the spectrum of visible light.
Over the centuries following Issac Newton’s discovery, science would continuously add to our knowledge of light and spectra; it would be discovered, for example, that as various materials were burned or ionized, they emitted colors of light that corresponded to the kinds of atoms that made up the sample.
The colors that you see in fireworks, for example, are a direct result of this phenomenon, revealed through pyrotechnic chemistry.
It also became possible, over time, to identify the unknown substances in a sample of material by looking for the unique ‘signature’ of light colors that appeared in the spectrum when they were ionized.
In the early 1900’s, the theory of Quantum Mechanics would be developed, and it would come to be used to explain fairly precisely why various atoms emit particular colors of light—electrons surrounding the nuclei of atoms gave off photons of various frequencies as they undergo specific energy transitions between various ‘quantized’ energy states.
We also learned over the last century that gases (hydrogen, helium, nitrogen, oxygen, CO2 etc.) have the property that they can also absorb certain narrow bands of colored light if a bright light (or infrared heat, also a form of light) source was located behind and shining through them before reaching one’s instruments.
For instance, if you passed a spectrum of white light through these gases when in a particular state, there would be dark bands “missing” from the spectra that could also be used to identify the substance that in this case was absorbing (and possibly re-emitting) light from a distant source.
These discoveries from the field of spectroscopy—the existence of emissions spectra, or the light colors emitted by “hot” elements, and “absorption spectra”, the dark bands missing when light passed through cold gas or dust—came to be used by astrophysicists to study the atomic composition of remote stars and galaxies.
We can now measure light spectra using telescopes fitted with special equipment and determine what the distant stars were made of.
The area of science including spectroscopy as one of its tools is more broadly referred to as remote sensing (as opposed to remote viewing, which is something entirely different.)
Remote sensing is also used by Earth-observing satellites to detect chemical and other properties of the land below that is being surveyed by them; when I was younger, I worked on a team at TRW Space and Defense that was involved with this kind of research.
Astrophysicists are now able to tell very precisely what materials exist in various stars and galaxies in the Universe—even in planets and exoplanets and their atmospheres—simply by examining what colors of light are emitted, reflected, or absorbed by light coming from or passing through the atmosphere of a distant planet or star.
They can also make inferences about what kinds of gas clouds lie between the Earth and distant stars or galaxies, because of the absorption spectra (the missing lines where certain colors being emitted from background stars are expected to be found but are instead “blotted out”.)
Physicists are also now able to determine—by noticing, for instance, that certain emission lines characteristic of hydrogen or helium in stars were not exactly in the right location on the spectrum but appeared to be “shifted” ever so slightly from their expected color line location towards the red end of the spectrum, so-called Red Shift—that the Universe is everywhere expanding.
I won’t get into the details of how this was determined, but it is also a consequence of “spectroscopy”, or the study of the color spectrum of light of distant stars.
So, having quickly introduced you to the idea that the colors of light coming from distant celestial objects can be used in two ways (via emissions spectra and absorption spectra) to determine what elements makes up the stellar light sources or what substances “lie in between” those distance sources and our telescopes, we’re ready for the next step.
Until 1992, astronomers and astrophysicists were only aware of the 10 planets orbiting our own sun. We had reason to suspect that other stars also had planets circling them, but until 1992, we had no way to detect them.
Through a variety of new methods using more sensitive telescopes and other instruments—by using, for example, measurements of “stellar wobble” caused by gravitational effects of circling planets and also by looking for faint dips in starlight that happen when planets pass in front of their parent stars and momentarily block out their light—we are now able to detect and measure properties of so-called exoplanets: planets like those in our own solar system, which are instead in orbit around distant stars. Using spectroscopy, we can now determine what gases are in sone of those exoplanet’s atmospheres.
4000 exoplanets have been discovered as of 2019; the first was found only as far back as 1992. There may be many in orbit around the 10 nearest stars to Earth.
One of the more interesting recent exoplanet discoveries is Proxima B, which orbits the star Alpha Centauri, the star closest to our own sun.
At 4.2 light years distant, Proxima B may be the closest planet to ours outside of our own solar system, and it may be in the habitable zone around its sun Alpha Centauri.
The James Webb Telescope may be able to detect even more exoplanets in the future, and it may also be able to detect artificial light that could hypothetically be emanating from the dark side of tidally-locked Proxima B: an intriguing prospect.
Now let’s take a short sprint in a different direction and talk about tardigrades as we lay out more of the baseline of understanding necessary to complete our speculative journey.
Tardigrades are one of the more fascinating creatures that we’ve discovered using microscopy. They are tiny, microscopic creatures that are difficult to relate to other evolutionary branches of life because of their strange properties.
They do, however, share one thing in common with us humans: DNA.
They were first identified in 1773 by Johann Goeze, who gave them the name “water bears”. They have been found in the deep sea, at the top of mountains, even in the Antarctic.
An interesting fact about tardigrades is that they are extremely hardy and resilient: they can survive and reproduce even after being exposed to the harshest of conditions that would kill other forms of life—high and low temperatures, exposure to what would otherwise be lethal radiation, extreme atmospheric pressures, loss of oxygen, and even long periods of dehydration and starvation.
There have even been experiments showing that tardigrades can survive direct exposure to outer space; we’ll come back to this last point later in the article.
Now let’s sprint in another direction. Another element of the background of our journey has to do with the recent discovery of interstellar objects (objects that apparently originated from beyond our solar system) —entities that have passed into our Solar System from outside it and come under the temporary influence of our sun’s gravitational field.
The first known interstellar object was dubbed Oumuamua; in 2017, it generated some excitement when it was discovered that the path it took as it passed through our Solar system exhibited tantalizing signs of non-gravitational acceleration.
That is, Oumuamua appeared to have changed direction relative to the path that it should have taken, had its motion been influenced only by gravitation.
Something else, perhaps on Oumuamua itself, “pushed it" off of its expected trajectory. Unlike comets, however, there were no tell-tale signs of a coma that would suggest that a gaseous emission from melting ice was responsible for the acceleration change.
Was it…some sort of a retro-rocket?
It remains a mystery what was responsible for Oumuamua’s unexpected movement. Was Oumuamua possibly an artificial object, created by a distant civilization? For what purpose? We’ll double back to this question later.
Another potential interstellar object was tracked when it impacted the Earth in 2014 and fell into the sea; U.S. Space command confirmed in 2022 that its likely point of origin came from outside of the Solar System based upon its trajectory, and in early 2023, Avi Loeb of Harvard University set out on an expedition to recover fragments of whatever that object was from the sea near Papua New Guinea.
He recently claimed that the chemical composition of the tiny iron-rich spherules that were recovered in 2023—the team used a magnetic sled to retrieve iron-bearing fragments from the impact site—suggest a metallurgical alloy that is unknown on Earth and is distinct from other known meteors and asteroids: Loeb contends that they could perhaps be evidence of “alien technology.”
Continuing our journey, let’s now briefly touch on the Fermi Paradox. In the summer of 1950, while having lunch with Edward Teller and other physicists, Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi was talking idly with his colleagues about recent UFO reports (just like we all do today, right? Funny how long this has been going on.)
During the discussion, Fermi reportedly blurted out “yes, but where is everybody?” when referring to the “aliens”. The idea he expressed later took on greater clarity: if the likelihood of life elsewhere in the Universe is so high, as suggested, for example, by calculations such as the Drake Equation—why haven’t we seen any evidence of it so far, in all our observations from projects like SETI?
Surely, the mathematical odds suggest we should have seen something from somewhere out there—by now, if life on other planets was as common as we think it is.
So why haven’t we detected radio signal communications from elsewhere, if the probability of extraterrestrial life is as high as we estimate?
This is the so-called Fermi Paradox.
One possibility is that radio signals of the kind that we currently use aren’t used by more advanced civilizations; maybe they use some form of spread spectrum communication, like our cell phone networks use, which would make detection difficult or impossible.
I have an interesting alternative (and speculative) solution to the Fermi Paradox: it may have to do with the distribution of Dark Matter in the Universe.
Here’s the reasoning: If, as my friend Dr. Randell Mills asserts, Dark Matter is simply hydrogen in a unique, non-reactive state (“hydrino”); and if, as he has shown, the energy that can be extracted from the conversion of hydrogen to hydrino (using single molecule water as a catalyst) is so high relative to any form of hydrogen combustion; if Mills was able to discover this property of hydrogen only a few hundred years after the industrial revolution; then perhaps many, many other ancient civilizations somewhere out in the Universe have also discovered, long ago, this transformation of hydrogen into H2 (1/4) to produce energy—simply, cleanly, and efficiently and at lower temperatures and without resorting to the plasma confinement complexity of fusion.
Perhaps the “hydrino” reaction could be a Universally exploited method for energy production from hydrogen well beyond what is possible with combustion—given that hydrogen is the most abundant “fuel” in the Universe.
Note also that, according to Mills, the molecular size of hydrino gives it properties similar to helium, such that if it is produced in large quantities and released into the atmosphere of Earth (or some other planet), it would just escape into space, much as free helium does.
Perhaps it might then form “Dark Matter clouds” in the vicinity of the planet on which it was created, once enough of it seeped into space.
Given that hydrogen is the most abundant substance in the Universe, it stands to reason that other civilizations besides our own on planet Earth would have figured out how to exploit reactions involving hydrogen (combustion, fusion, proton exchange, or hydrino creation) to produce electrical energy—efficiently and ubiquitously—from it.
If so, and if the result of energy extraction from the conversion of H2 into “hydrino” or H2 (1/4) —which is non-reactive and non-light emitting, and as Mills claims, has all the necessary physical properties of Dark Matter—then perhaps the anomalous, i.e. non-random distribution of Dark Matter throughout the Universe could give us clues to the location and age of other extraterrestrial civilizations!
Perhaps these distant civilizations might themselves even be looking for the creation of Dark Matter on habitable planets elsewhere in the Cosmos as a signature of civilizational advancement, given the societal stability that can come from ubiquitous, non-polluting, non-centrally controlled and inexpensive point-of-use energy production—energy produced locally, “off grid” and in an amount than can far exceed the needs of small groups of people. This is a ‘holy grail’ that our civilization needs to achieve, and soon: we need to be free of dependence on the ‘energy overlords’ who control, limit, and profit off of our need for energy to live comfortably.
Perhaps extraterrestrial civilizations are watching for the tell-tale signs of hydrino production, as an indication that we have attained a necessary level of planetary-sustaining energy competence and socio-political stability.
The higher the concentration of Dark Matter and the further away it is (thus, the further back in time that it would have been created) could suggest the age and relative success of the extraterrestrial civilization that might be responsible for its creation.
Hence, this is a possible solution to the Fermi Paradox involving not radio signals, but evidence of energy production at vast scale as revealed by concentration of Dark Matter.
There is one final piece of the puzzle to touch on, and then we’ll start to tie all of the pieces together.
A few years ago, I listened (on YouTube) to a talk given by Patrick Moore, who was once a founder of the Greenpeace organization but has now evolved to be a highly credible “climate alarmism” skeptic.
In his talk, Patrick points out that atmospheric CO2 has been steadily declining over the past 160 million years (see the chart below) and he points out that, were the downward trend to continue as it has been for millions of years, CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere could, in a “near” geologic timespan fall below a level that is necessary to support plant life, thus extinguishing most of the life on the planet that depends on plant life for oxygen and nutrients.
Moore makes the point that we, as humans who are contributing to a rise in atmospheric CO2—and thus, contributing to a counter-trend reversal of this hundred-million year downtrend—are therefore “not the enemy of Nature, but its Salvation”.
This is a very interesting point of view.
So now let’s start to tie together some of the earlier material and bring this post home.
If we, as humans, have been able to develop the technology to do remote sensing of star composition and exoplanet atmospheres just a few hundred years after Isaac Newton first discovered the nature of light; if we have been able, in the same timeframe, to discover a means to produce energy from hydrogen in the most efficient (non-fusion) way possible; if we have been able to develop rockets to escape our planet’s gravity and travel to distant planets and eventually stars; is it not inconceivable that other far more advanced civilizations, elsewhere and elsewhen in the Universe, had also long ago discovered these things?
Is it conceivable that those other civilizations—having discovered the atmosphere of our own planet Earth through their own remote sensing, and having observed it over the millennia, noted that the level of CO2 was declining precipitously, and that in order to preserve the diversity of and probability of advanced life on Earth—decided that a remote intervention was necessary to reverse the alarming CO2 downtrend?
Is it possible then that these civilizations sent an icy (water-bearing) comet with an internal payload of life seeding material, or an Oumoumua-like object on a long distance interstellar trajectory, calculated to intercept the Earth at some distant point in the future, and thereby reverse the dangerous downtrend? A terraforming of Earth. Panspermia.
Might this payload have included DNA carried by organisms that could survive long interstellar travels, survive the cold of space and the radiation of a passage through the Solar System, and reanimate when conditions were right—such as the formidable tardigrades?
Is it conceivable that, within the DNA of the tardigrades there was encoded a “plan” that would someday lead to an advanced life-form (humans) who would eventually be able to stabilize and reverse the downtrend of CO2 here on Earth?
Interesting ideas to think about.
Is Patrick Moore therefore right in believing that, with respect to CO2 — humans are not the enemy of Nature, but in fact—it’s Salvation? That we exist here on Earth precisely because it was necessary to reverse the downtrend of CO2 that would have led to the extinction of plant life, and with it, the rich diversity of advanced animals and fish?
We have now come to the end of our journey…and now you have a fresh way of thinking about life on Earth and CO2. Perhaps it is supposed to be increasing, by intent.
A plant nearby winks at you, and thanks you for your time reading this article.
I hope you enjoyed this latest post! More to come next week on AI.
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Here are some related resources that I found as I worked on this piece; you may find them of interest:
Webb Space Telescope captures first image of distant world (msn.com)
NASA's Webb Telescope Just Detected Carbon Dioxide On A Distant Planet (msn.com)
James Webb found water ice in the rings of an asteroid (msn.com)
It’s Official: NASA discovered another Earth (thelifehacker.org)
from the article above:
an update on Exoplanets:
We Just Found a Molecule on Another World...and Only Living Organisms Can Produce It (msn.com)
A new research paper about Tardigrades:
Examples of Extreme Survival: Tardigrade Genomics and Molecular Anhydrobiology. - Abstract - Europe PMC
Very interesting! Thank you for “dumbing it down” so that a novice like me could understand it!
Fascinating thought experiment. I must admit, once you mentioned Proxima B I couldn't get past wondering if that is the home of the Nommos. Perhaps something far more sophisticated than tardigrades has visited us. https://www.gaia.com/article/did-this-african-tribe-originate-in-another-star-system