Atmospheric Life On Gas Gaints



I am going to talk about imaginary but possible alien life in the atmospheres of gas giants.  The first example that I will show you is from Chapter/Episode 2 of my hero Carl Edward Sagan's Cosmos called "One Voice In The Cosmic Fugue".  Carl Sagan worked with a colleague; a physicist named E.E. Salpeter, in 1976 on some calculations on realistic designs for life forms populating a planet that is like Jupiter.  Sagan started the  topic  of Jovian  life  with small lifeforms that drift down and are eventually fried called "sinkers."  But Sagan with the help of Salpeter came  up with ideas for other possible life, including vast  living balloons called "floaters."  The floaters would be kilometers across; enormously larger than any Sando Aqua Monster ever was  or would have been, beings the size of cities.  The floaters would  be arranged in great  lazy herds for as far as the eye can see with camouflage.  There are also smaller, faster, and more maneuverable "hunters" who consume the larger and sluggish floaters.  Hollow sinkers would evolve into the first floaters while later  on self-propelled floaters would evolve into the first hunters.  Adolf Schaller who is known for scientific accuracy  and vivid realism in his artwork made the image below.



Jupiter  "floaters" and "hunters" (Cosmos

 

 

Jupiter Floaters (Cosmos): Vastly larger than any Sando Aqua Monsters



Jupiter Hunters (Cosmos)

Cosmos is not the only scientific work that has speculations about possible life in the atmospheres of gas giants.  One example is Terence Dickinson who wrote books like The Universe And Beyond and Extraterrestrials: A Field Guide For Earthlings in which he also speculated about gas giants having atmospheric life.  The image of an over half a kilometer long aerial whale called the Guide with tow light bulb-shaped floating cities in the background is a perfect example.  The Guide is bigger than any Sando Aqua Monsters just like the even much larger floaters from Cosmos are.  Aerial whales like the Guide have tiny crablike creatures that do housekeeping  duties  in their bodies and are in turn provided  with free transportation.  The 40km high floating cities are constructed using technology processing membranous plants in the atmosphere.  These Jovian Cites can even launch spacecraft and that may include alien Colo Claw Fish Carriers.  Stephen Hawking also speculates about life in gas giants such as the image of the pumpkin-shaped floaters.  I bet that the gas giant floaters that Hawking came up with are much larger than any Sando Aqua Monsters ever will be too.  Hawking's floaters would consume the lightning storms that constantly rage on gas giants as food.

Aerial Whale: the Guide (Extraterrestrials: A Field Guide For Earthlings)




Stephen Hawking's pumpkin-shaped Jupiter Floaters