Life in a gas torus around a neutron star
Larry Niven wrote a novel called The Integral Trees, which was followed by a sequel The Smoke Ring. This is Wikipedia's synopsis of the setting:
The story occurs around the fictional neutron star Levoy's Star (abbreviated "Voy"). The gas giant Goldblatt's World (abbreviated "Gold") orbits this star just outside its Roche limit and therefore its gravity is insufficient to keep its atmosphere, which is pulled loose into an independent orbit around Voy and forms a ring that is known as a gas torus. The gas torus is huge"”one million kilometers thick"”but most of it is too thin to be habitable. The central part of the Gas Torus, where the air is thicker, is known as the Smoke Ring. The Smoke Ring supports a wide variety of life.
Two questions:
Could such an environment really be habitable to life with similar biochemistry* to Earth's?
Could abiogenesis occur here? (I doubt it)
That's more or less it. If you need any more details, just ask in a comment. Also, here is Wikipedia's full description of the novels' setting.
*Edit: by similar, I mean low-temperature carbon-water based life, such that there won't be fundamental changes to biology (e.g. inhaling/exhaling different gases)
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/129213. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
0 answers
0 comment threads