Trek Planetary Science: Sea of Sugar

[AJHalliwell]

This may not be the best place for this, but it was the best I could come up with. With no particular goal in mind, I've been trying to imagine ways to make alien planets all the more alien from Earth...

So I spent the last week in Myrtle Beach, and while enjoying the sun and the burn of salt water in my eyes - I randomly got to thinking about why sea water is salty. Then I got to wondering, if you change just a few ores and chemicals on Earth, is it possible a planet could evolve a sea of sugar water? I feel like weirder things Have happened. But there isn't much theorization in this direction on the internet it seems...

Another thing I was wondering, was how to make plants not green. Star Trek has often mentioned how rare (or "impossible" but not) Silicon-based lifeforms were, but what if a planet's plant-life was silicon based? Would the stems be metallic, and blue-silver? I'm also trying to imagine an alternative to photosynthesis, but with how preposterous the photosynthesis itself sounds - I feel like anything is possible, with how crazy and creative real life nature can be.

Any input on these two, or other potentially very-alien environments?

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Try this page for some info on hypothetical life forms and environments.

As for an alternative to photosynthesis, what about chemosynthesis?

 

[Meredith]

A planet of sugar would get wiped out the moment a ship from the planet of the flies landed on it....

 

[scotpens]

Sea of Sugar would make a good title for a rock album.

I don't recall the precise hypothetical conditions, but one science book I had as a child postulated an alien planet with a sea of oil -- and another with an ocean of carbonated water.

Imagine the sea being filled with seltzer. All you'd need is a lake of Scotch.

A planet of sugar would get wiped out the moment a ship from the planet of the flies landed on it....

Just think what they'd do to a planet of shit!

 

[Canadave]

Imagine the sea being filled with seltzer. All you'd need is a lake of Scotch.

Accurate terminology, please. That would clearly have to be a loch.

 

[sojourner]

I like a scooch of scotch now and then.

 

[Christopher]

I randomly got to thinking about why sea water is salty. Then I got to wondering, if you change just a few ores and chemicals on Earth, is it possible a planet could evolve a sea of sugar water?

Sugar is not a mineral. It's a substance created by plant life, a product of photosynthesis. It's a pretty complex organic molecule, so I doubt it could be formed spontaneously by non-biological means. I certainly can't see any way to get a whole ocean bed or continental land mass made of it. (The sea is salty because of dissolved minerals from erosive runoff and the sea bed.)

Another thing I was wondering, was how to make plants not green. Star Trek has often mentioned how rare (or "impossible" but not) Silicon-based lifeforms were, but what if a planet's plant-life was silicon based? Would the stems be metallic, and blue-silver? I'm also trying to imagine an alternative to photosynthesis, but with how preposterous the photosynthesis itself sounds - I feel like anything is possible, with how crazy and creative real life nature can be.

There's actually no reason why alien plants would have to be green. Green isn't even the best color for a photosynthetic chemical here on Earth, because the Sun's peak wavelength is actually slightly into the green part of the spectrum (though our eyes see it as yellow for reasons having to do with the sensitivity spectra of our color-sensitive pigments), so green plants are actually reflecting the part of the solar spectrum that has the most energy to offer. This happened because the early photosynthetic algae and whatnot were red and blue, which were better colors for photosynthesis from a yellow-green star, so the algae that lived below them in ponds had to settle for absorbing red and blue light, which means reflecting what was left, i.e. green light. But somehow the green algae had some other advantage over the red and blue ones and won the competition in the long run. So it's really kind of a fluke that Earth plants are green at all.

Plants on another planet could easily use some other photosynthetic pigment. Around a hotter, bluer star, you'd want something more to the red or yellow so you'd get more of the blue light. Around a dim, cool, red star, you'd probably get black leaves to absorb the maximum amount of energy, including infrared, which would be a major part of such a star's spectrum. Unless you get a fluke situation like on Earth where the pigment that wins out is the "wrong" color.

"Silicon-based" life would actually be based on silicone, a compound of silicon and oxygen (just as "carbon-based" life is based on compounds of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen). Silicones are rubbery solids or viscous fluids -- so having the silicone-based Horta in "The Devil in the Dark" made out of a rubbery latex was actually pretty accurate.