How big would an amorphous blob have to be to toss part of itself into orbit?

First contact with an alien life form often goes badly. In the case of Biothanata, it always goes badly. The first glimpse of this alien blob is in the form of a falling star, a meteorite. After burning off an ablative layer of rock and juicy outsides, it crash-lands. Once cooled, a red liquid leaks out of what is left of the meteor, quickly consuming any and all bio-matter around it. As it digests the grass, leaves, bugs, and other creatures, it grows, amoeba-like, sending out tendrils, splitting and reforming, but always consuming. It also digests rocks, or at least breaks them down into bite-size pieces to use, though at a much slower pace.

Eventually, if nothing stops it (and nothing has, yet) it consumes all available life on the planet, barring some hardy life forms that are difficult to access. Once it grows large enough, the now enormous blob of red goo begins bunching itself together, then hurling chunks of itself high into the sky. After enough attempts, the giant blob manages to throw one (or more) smaller blobs into space, escaping Earth's gravity. Each blob is packed with rocks and dirt to use as course adjustment. Eventually, over the course of thousands of years, the majority of the space-blob sends itself out to another planet; all that's left is a (relative) handful of indigestible dust and a tiny dried-up blob.

How big would the blob have to be to toss a 10-foot cube of itself out of Earth's orbit? Assume the thrown piece can start larger and accelerate itself by shooting pieces of itself off behind it, form itself into a basic wing or flying disk to catch the wind, and generally behave somewhat intelligently; also assume the "main" blob can lift and hold itself to a height of roughly half its base (higher is possible, but will cause it to fall afterwards). Edit: also assume the blob can be very, staggeringly large, nearing "planet sized" itself - as big as it needs to get before it can hurl blobs into space.

Once a blob breaks free of the world's gravity, it then breaks free of the Sun's gravity by tossing various space debris behind it. Assuming it has all the time in the universe, and manages to accelerate itself as much as possible, how long would it take before it found another planet?

Bonus question: Assuming a starting size of roughly one cubic foot, unchecked growth, and a digestion rate roughly equal to the most aggressive digestion of a creature on Earth, how long would it take for Biothanata to consume the majority of land-based organic life on an Earth-like planet?

posted about 8 years ago

ArmanX‭

1 reputation 2 0 0 0