Since the invention of radio A. S. Popov, our planet is enveloped in dense clubs of "radio smog", rapidly scattering at the speed of light in all directions. Today it is difficult to say who and when will receive scraps of these radio messages. Perhaps this information will be intercepted by some completely alien forms of intelligent life? For example, something like an intelligent cosmic cloud, generated by the fantasy of Fred Hoyle.
Live gas
In 1964, this outstanding English scientist and popularizer of science, in his next science fiction novel "Black Cloud", described a strange space object - an organized cloud of "living" black gas.
According to the plot, such a space alien invaded the solar system and, approaching the sun, brought innumerable disasters to earthlings. Fortunately, he realized in time that there are intelligent inhabitants on the surface of the third planet, and hastily retired into space.
Hoyle's black cloud had a very strange structure of dust particles and organic molecules that acted as a kind of biological cells. This incredible organism fed on streams of electromagnetic radiation and therefore constantly traveled from star to star.
Being a kind of organosilicon life form, the Black Cloud was resistant to cosmic radiation, ultra-low temperatures and products of stellar thermonuclear reactions. In principle, such a quasi-biological entity should be practically immortal, but it is only very difficult to assume its rationality even in a science fiction novel.
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Celebrating the half-century anniversary of the release of Hoyle's work, scientists at the Plasma Physics Laboratory at Princeton University conducted research showing that under certain conditions, "living" black clouds could travel through the metagalaxy. This hypothesis is based on the theory of organosilicon life based on silicon compounds.
It should be noted that a few years before Hoyle, the famous Soviet science fiction writer Anatoly Dneprov (A. P. Mitskevich) wrote about the principles of creating organosilicon organisms. Being a physicist by training and scientific editor of the journal "Technics for Youth", he very convincingly showed in the story "The Clay God" how such biochemical studies could proceed.
Modern works on the study of various mixtures of inorganic materials in plasma have found that, under certain conditions, dust particles can form some kind of spiral structures. The corresponding computer models of the behavior of dust in plasma flows have shown that microscopic particles can self-organize, charging, and the plasma itself is additionally polarized.
In some of their properties, spiral microsystems of dust particles are somewhat reminiscent of
DNA, they can even divide, so from one original helix, two exact copies are obtained. Some biophysicists point out directly that such self-organizing plasma structures demonstrate all the necessary qualities for inorganic life.
Exobiologists are closely following such work by plasmophysicists, expressing confidence that open "plasma DNA" can be found freely in protoplanetary disks near newborn stars. In principle, there are all the necessary conditions - ionized gas, charged dust and intense radiation from the young star.
Among the many theories put forward about the prevalence and role of such self-organizing plasma streams, the hypothesis stands out, which radically forces us to reconsider the picture of the Universe. According to her, plasma DNA is more widespread in space than any type of organic matter, which means that life like Earth is rather rare.
Fantastic world of Solaris
Or maybe it will be some kind of intelligent ocean, similar to the one covering the planet Solaris in Stanislav Lem's novel? This thinking ocean appears to us as the result of dialectical development, from a solution of weakly reacting chemicals to the final stage of the "homeostatic ocean."
Thus, under the influence of external conditions that threaten its existence, Solaris has passed all stages of the formation of single and multicellular organisms, the evolution of flora and fauna. In other words, he did not adapt for hundreds of millions of years, like terrestrial organisms, to the habitat in order to crown evolution with reason, but became the master of nature immediately and forever.
However, despite the original scientific hypotheses of the classics of science fiction, it must be admitted that, most likely, living organisms are limited in space and are somehow separated from the external environment by some kind of shell. And I really want to believe the wonderful writer Ivan Efremov, who categorically believed that our world should be filled with beautiful, proportionally built humanoids, beautiful in every way. Remember at least the brilliant story of the writer "The Heart of the Snake" …
But what about less exotic things? For example, is non-protein life possible in the shadow of a giant shield of bubbling clouds of some gas giant like Jupiter? Maybe someday the messengers of a person will meet unusual formations, similar to those that Carl Sagan so successfully "constructed": speakers capable of being born, soar into the higher colder layers of the local atmosphere, hydrogen balloons, floaters, able to eject helium from themselves and others heavier gases, and hunters, hunters devouring these formations …
The Jupiterian world of Carl Sagan's "pseudo-life" is complemented and developed by a striking panorama of Jupiterian life chains, brilliantly described in the novels of Arthur Clarke "2010: Odyssey Two" and "2061: Odyssey Three": it was easy to overlook. Some of them strikingly resembled terrestrial aircraft, both in shape and size.
But they were also alive - maybe predators, maybe parasites, and maybe even shepherds … and jet torpedoes, similar to the cephalopods of the Earth's oceans, hunting for gas bags and devouring them. But the gigantic spheres were not defenseless; they defended themselves with clawed tentacles, like kilometer-long chainsaws, and electric discharges.
Living Crystals
We are all eagerly awaiting the latest results from the search for space life, conducted today by several special research missions, but to date, organic spores in space have not been found. Literally every day brings us new amazing discoveries from near and deep space, but it seems that this delicious barrel of astronomical honey also contains a hefty fly in the ointment - until there was even a hint of any signals from the "little green men".
Moreover, we cannot find a planet that at least partially resembles the Earth: with an oxygen atmosphere, water and a more or less acceptable climate. The belief in the existence of intelligent neighbors is gradually giving way: the airless Moon, the dead sands of Mars, the red-hot sulphate hell of Venus, the icy worlds of the satellites of the gas giants … Now scientists only with big reservations admit the existence of the simplest organisms in the bowels of Mars or somewhere under the ice shells of gas satellites giants.
But do we know what life is? What is a living organism from the point of view of modern science? Despite the seemingly scholastic nature of this issue, it also has a purely applied significance, because in the same biochemical experiments on modeling the conditions for the emergence of the first cells on our planet, it is necessary to clearly understand what has arisen in the thermostat - living or nonliving?
It will not hurt to know the answer to this question and paleontologists who study the most ancient rocks in search of the first fossils, and, of course, exobiologists who are looking for extraterrestrial organisms.
It is very difficult to give a universal definition of life. Many thinkers have tried to do this. We can recall the outstanding physicist of the last century Erwin Schrödinger, who wrote the wonderful book "What is life?" In it, one of the founders of modern science pointed the way to a strictly scientific distinction between living and inanimate objects.
I recall my teacher, the outstanding crystal physicist Ya. E. Geguzin. Yakov Evseevich's lectures at Kharkiv University were a stunning success (they were attended by professors, researchers, and students of other courses and faculties), and on their basis a fascinating popular science book "Living Crystal" arose.
Indeed, what is characteristic only of a living organism? Maybe a set of external signs? Something soft, moving, making sounds. Plants, microbes and many more organisms do not fall into this primitive definition, because they are silent and do not move.
You can consider life from a chemical point of view as matter, consisting of complex organic compounds: amino acids, proteins, fats. But then a simple mechanical mixture of these compounds should be considered alive, which is completely wrong. What grows develops? But a crystal can grow too. So what is life then?
The world famous theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking believes that man managed to create a completely alien life, and he settled these electronic aliens in the form of viruses on the Internet and mobile communication systems. Half jokingly, half seriously, this one of the most original scientists of our time warns that the "civilization of computer viruses" has all the prerequisites for further evolution with an unpredictable result.
So, by and large, universal loneliness does not threaten a person, and it is better for him now to think about how the alien mind created by him would not ultimately take up arms against its creator …
Oleg FAIG