In the Prevalence of Ocean Worlds Alan SternSwRI Water Ocean Worlds WOWs Once Thought Rare Water Ocean Worlds WOWs Once Thought Rare No Longer Water Ocean Worlds WOWs WOWs are common ID: 676158
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Slide1
An Answer to Fermi’s Paradox
In the Prevalence of Ocean Worlds?Alan Stern/SwRISlide2Slide3
Water Ocean Worlds (WOWs)
Once Thought Rare.
Slide4
Water Ocean Worlds (WOWs)
Once Thought Rare.
No Longer.Slide5
Water Ocean Worlds (WOWs)
WOWs are common
in
our
s
olar
s
ystem.
WOWs are also likely
c
ommon
in
e
xtrasolar
p
lanetary
systems.Slide6
Interior WOWs Are Particularly Conducive to Life:
Danger lurks everywhere for those living on surface ocean worlds.
But not so in interior ocean worlds: They are much more stable environments, much lower risk to biology.Slide7
Interior WOWs Are Also Naturally Insulated
From CommunicatingInterior WOWs are, by definition, isolated from their surface environments
and the Universe by
thick shells of ice or rock or
both
.
Therefore such
abodes can neither be detected by or directly communicate with other worlds
in space
using most
all electromagnetic
means. Slide8
Interior WOWs Are Also Naturally Insulated
From Space TravelI
t
is not
clear
that intelligent species living in
interior WOWs
would know of the external surface of their
worlds.
I
f
they do,
its unclear
why they would explore much less inhabit such an alien (and likely lethal) environment.
Interior WOW
life is
also likely
to be constrained by the need to bring or create massive water supplies simply to live on their world’s surface or
to travel in
space. Slide9
Conclusions
Perhaps the universe is teeming with life, and even intelligent civilizations that are predominantly in interior WOWs
.
Such
civilizations would be strongly insulated from communicating with others by the
lids
above their ocean abodes, and would be severely disadvantaged in developing
spaceflight as well.Slide10
BackupsSlide11
Interior WOWs—Biased Against Astronomy and Space Travel?
Would civilizations in Interior WOWs that do explore their world’s surface would even recognize or develop astronomy to learn that the sky above their world is filled with other worlds across space
.?
And if
they
did,
they might naturally be biased to only consider life and extraterrestrial civilizations as residing
inside
other far away worlds,
hence obviating many rationales
and methods for extraterrestrial communications and travel, particularly with surface inhabited worlds like ours.