Orphaned Rogue Interstellar Planets

Lots of effort has been put into discovering the existence of extra-solar planets and thus confirming that our own solar system isn’t some sort of anomaly. Hundreds of extra-solar planets have now been found and in the databanks, with more being found every week.  Meantime, there’s a whole other set of extra-solar planetary objects or abodes, probably undetectable with even foreseeable technology. These extra-solar abodes are the sunless orphans (technically termed ‘rogue planets’ or maybe ‘interstellar planets’) that exist in deep interstellar (perhaps even intergalactic) space itself. The number of orphaned interstellar planets could easily equal, or even vastly exceed, all the planets in all the solar systems in the Milky Way Galaxy combined. Could such orphans expand the range of abodes for life in the cosmos? There is a real possibility that orphan planets could host viable communities (ecosystems) of microbes based on chemosynthesis.

Our solar system today probably seems like a pretty well ordered place – it runs like clockwork, is predictable, and it’s pretty benign on the whole. But, it was not always so, and may not always remain that way in the future. In those early chaotic when the proto-sun and the proto-planets were forming, the orbital dynamics were anything but well ordered. Collisions and close encounters between these proto-objects, and associated interacting gravitational forces at play meant that some bodies spiraled into the proto-sun; others in their gravitational dances were ejected, in a slingshot sort of way, from the proto-solar system altogether. 

In the future, as our sun and solar system along with hundreds of thousands of other ‘nearby’ suns (stars) orbit the galactic center, distances between stars vary, sometime coming close enough for their respective gravitational forces to cause another dance and throw monkey wrenches into the peace and tranquility and well-ordered-ness of the respective stellar systems and debris (like planets orbiting their parent suns). As before, some objects could be perturbed and dislodged and fall into their sun, or be ejected from the gravitational control of that sun altogether and head out into space and a lonely, endless night, existence.  Also, the ejection process will be alive and well in binary (tug of war) star systems (and there are an awful lot of them about).

While there’s nothing to be said for those unfortunate bodies (and life forms – if any) that get cataclysmically into their parent suns, it’s not quite ‘The End’ for those now sunless orphans. There could be multi-thousands (or more) of orphaned planets (of all sizes and makeup) in deep space beyond the bright light and solar energy of a sun. There could be an orphan planet within a light year of us and we’d never know or suspect.

Could orphan planets form all by themselves in the depths of lonely space? Well, if a large interstellar dust and gas cloud can gravitationally collapse to form a star(s) and associated stellar (solar) system, I fail to see why a smaller interstellar dust and gas cloud couldn’t collapse to form a planet sized object, probably a ‘failed star’ like a Jupiter, maybe with moons. From that of course it is easy to extrapolate and suggest such a Jovian ‘failed star’ might have smaller abodes (planets) form and orbit same – a nearly invisible solar system. Or perhaps it’s just an orphan planet with associated moons. Either definition amounts to the same thing – a rose by any other name applies.

Regardless of initial origin, conventional wisdom would suggest that these orphans must be lifeless, even if before the event they had life.

When I was a high school biology student (1962-63), it was absolutely gospel (and no correspondence would be entered into contrary) that our sun was the be all and end all of the existence of terrestrial life. No sun; no life. All life ultimately depended on photosynthetic plants which in turn couldn’t exist without sunlight. Even then however I seem to recall speculation about the possibility of a non-photosynthetic based ecology in the atmosphere of Jupiter which gladdened my heart no end - however, it wasn‘t Jupiter that broke the photosynthetic mold, but good old Mother Earth herself. So gospel ain’t gospel any longer! Today we know about chemosynthesis (organisms that can produce organics from inorganic substances and derive energy from the process.)

A well known, if little understood example of chemosynthesis are the colonies of microbes (dubbed ‘rusticles’) that are eating the iron structure of the RMS Titanic, resting some four kilometers below the surface of the North Atlantic. Within another generation or two, the famous shipwreck will have been basically consumed by microbes, without any benefit bestowed by our sun.

But, an orphaned planet has severe problems quite apart from a lack of solar energy. What about heat? Sources of heat (apart from a parent sun) include gravitational contraction, radioactivity, chemical activity, friction, etc. So heat shouldn’t be too much of a problem for some planetary abodes. Rocky planets like Earth have radioactive elements that partly comprise their crusts and interiors, and radioactive decay gives off heat, and rock is a good insulator. I doubt if chemical activity or friction will contribute much, but for Jupiter-sized planets, gravitational contraction means that these types of planets (like Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune) give off more heat energy than they receive from the sun.

Of course friction could be a source of heat in some rare cases. One other heating scenario is plausible if an orphan planet had a satellite(s) of the right composition. The satellite(s) might be warmed by tidal frictional forces courtesy of their parent orphaned planet akin to what we observe on Io and Europa. These satellites are heated by the effects of Jupiter’s tidal attractions on the interiors of these moons which get flexed and stretched and compressed, ever alternating between extremes. The resulting friction results in heating. An alternative version could be two orphaned planets of roughly the same size, orbiting each other in relatively close proximity. Each would mutually tidally heat the other, but only for a while. You can’t produce heat energy out of nothing, and the price paid would be their orbital separation increasing until the gravitational bonds weaken so much that you’d have – for all intents and purposes – two separate orphaned planets. This is akin to our own Moon which is retreating from Mother Earth, albeit ever so slowly, over time.

But heat tends to be the final end waste product in any energy chain of events. Heat itself is not useful as an energy source for living things; albeit quite useful in contributing to the environmental friendliness in which organisms thrive, like keeping temperatures suitable for liquid water or for biochemical reactions. I mean an infrared lamp may feel real good, but it’s not providing you with any calories!

Could one have an origin of life (biogenesis) event on an orphaned planet? Why not, providing you had the appropriate chemicals, all mixing it up in an appropriate liquid medium (water most likely), and an energy source(s), and lots of time.

So, an orphan planet could have had a biogenesis event, coupled with suitable chemicals for chemosynthesis and heat. What more do you want! Well, are there any positives to be had?

Are there any obvious advantages to being a life form on an orphan planet? I think so. What if your initial parent star were a variable star, or a very massive star that’s going to have a very short lifespan, maybe terminate in a supernova - advantage orphan. Maybe your initial orbit was so lopsided (elliptical) that you alternatively froze and fried – advantage orphan. Gravitational (tidal) locking – keeping one hemisphere always turned toward one point, say the surface of your parent star – causing temperature extremes, is now irrelevant. The tilt of your axis (which can also cause extremes in heating/cooling is now also irrelevant. Your weather, such as it is, would be relatively gentle without solar energy driving it. Then too, inhabiting deep space via-a-visa crowded debris filled solar system reduces drastically those nasty collision impacts. A thick Jovian (Jupiter) type atmosphere or thick ice cap is probably good shielding from radiation, though even a nearby supernova might be bad news. You’re also insulated from all those nasty bug-eyed-monster alien types. They can easily find solar systems, but not orphans. In any event, your orphan planet isn’t very desirable real estate to alien invaders!

One day, in the not too distant future, it will be a fairly straight forward exercise to compare solar systems – what’s a typical solar system; what’s an atypical solar system. However, questions central to what a typical planet and an abode for life is  will still be difficult to answer, as that population of orphan planets (and ages of same) will take a long time yet to resolve itself. 

Further Readings:

Stevenson, David J.; Life-sustaining planets in interstellar space? (in) Nature, 1 July 1999; p.32:

De La Fuente, M.C. & De La Fuente, M.R.; Runaway planets (in) New Astronomy, Volume 4, #1, February 1999; p.21-32:

The Rare Earth Hypothesis: Part One

If the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) is a viable experiment and not a waste of time; if UFOs and ancient astronauts are facets that help document the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence, then the very existence of an advanced extraterrestrial intelligence with technology has to be plausible in the first place. Unfortunately, it’s a long hard road to get from inorganic chemistry through to E.T. and there are many possible bottleneck hurdles that have to be overcome before the one evolves into the other. Goldilocks factors – not too this, not too that, but just right – have to be with you every step of the way. IMHO the major bottlenecks are the transition from unicellular to multicellular life and the evolutionary development and use of technology.

It’s been pointed out by others, and based on my readings I tend to have to agree, that astronomers (physical scientists) tend to be much more optimistic and supportive of the notion that advanced life forms in the Universe (extraterrestrial intelligence) are a dime-a-dozen relative to biologists (life scientists), who hedge their bets and who it must be said are presumably better qualified to pass judgments. So, taking things from a more biological perspective, what’s what?

For starters, our Universe is a Goldilocks Universe in that the fundamental laws, relations and principles of physics unite in such a way as to be ultimately bio-friendly. If the Universe wasn’t bio-friendly, we wouldn’t be here to comment on that. That’s not to say however, in relative contrast, that many (most) parts of the Universe aren’t overly bio-friendly. You’d be hard-pressed to survive and thrive in the depths of a stellar core, heading down a Black Hole, vacationing on the surface of a White Dwarf or in the hard vacuum of space itself.  So, overall the physics of the Universe displays the physics of a Goldilocks Universe, but actually very few addresses within an overall Goldilocks Universe are really, by our definition, Goldilocks. However, starting with bio-friendly physics, where do we go from that point? Well, physics begat inorganic chemistry. That’s step number one, and clearly that’s easy because there’s an awful lot of inorganic chemistry in our Universe.

Going from inorganic chemistry to organic chemistry isn’t difficult either. Interstellar space is full of dust and gases made up of organic chemicals; ditto many of the planets and moons within our solar system (i.e. – Titan, a moon of Saturn) have organics being part and parcel of their composition, and comets, asteroids and meteors too can contain organic compounds.

Judging by how quickly organic chemistry turned into biochemistry (the origin of life) on the early Planet Earth, it’s not difficult to generate simple proto-cellular to unicellular life forms if the conditions (adequate energy, temperatures, environments) are Goldilocks conditions.

Yet life, even microbial life, is still very, very complex (try making a microbe from scratch if you doubt it). The fact that life arose from scratch on Earth within a very, very short span of geological time after the planet formed is a bit suspect IMHO. But what if Earth were seeded by microbial life forms already in existence from space (or deliberately seeded by extraterrestrials as the Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick has proposed)? Now I realize that just puts off the origin of life question to another time(s) and place(s). However, given the vastness of the cosmos is far greater than that of our finite globe, and given that the cosmos existed for vastly longer periods of time before our sun, solar system and home planet came into existence, such additional time and space easily turns the improbable into a near certainty. And once established somewhere, then life could spread throughout that time and space, until it reached our young planet.

Earth arose billions of years after the universe and our galaxy had evolved, ample time for life to have arisen elsewhere, and seed the early Earth. This is the concept of panspermia. We know that comets, meteors, and the cosmic dust of outer space are chock-o-block full of complex organic molecules. We know that simple terrestrial life can survive the outer space environment if suitably shielded – and it doesn’t take much to do the shielding. We know that surface bits from planets/moons can be ejected into space, carry a cargo of microbes, and land on another planet, even eons later with the microbes still viable. Of course 99.999% of all such microbial life will be doomed to forever wander in space or crash onto a cold, surface of a planet with no atmosphere or water, or plunge into a star, etc. But, sheer numbers will insure that now and again some microbes will land on a hospitable abode and be fruitful and multiple and evolve. The interesting bit is that if then, then now. And thus panspermia will be happening today. Certainly some meteorites which have impacted Earth have inside them ‘organized elements’ suggestive of microbial structures – the Murchison Meteorite from Australia is one such stone. The problem is terrestrial contamination as there are often lengthy time periods between their fall and subsequent discovery. As an aside, if Fred Hoyle & Chandra Wickramasinghe are correct (and I believe they are), microbes (bacteria and viruses) impacting Earth today are largely responsible for some select or various disease epidemics and pandemics, past present, and no doubt future.

On Earth, microbes rule, OK? The biomass of all the bacteria, etc. put together easily equals the biomass of every other multicellular plant and animal added together. And microbes can live in environments where multicellular critters fear to tread and often can’t: from the coldest terrestrial environments, up to the near boiling temperatures, from deep underground to the heights of the atmosphere, from inside water-cooled nuclear reactors and the interior of rocks, to intensely saline, acidic and alkaline environments, to ecosystems where the sun never shines, like the abyssal depths.

They can even survive outer space. Bacteria survived on the surface of the Moon – on Surveyor Three. This was possibly the most significant discovery of the entire Apollo Moon program and it hardly even rated a mention. Astronauts from the Apollo 12 mission brought back to Earth parts of the unmanned Surveyor Three Lunar Lander. Terrestrial bacteria on those parts survived the lunar vacuum, solar radiations (UV, etc.), the massive temperature extremes, and lack of water and nutrients. Experiments since then in low earth orbit have confirmed that given just minimal shielding, bacteria can boldly go!

You’d be aware of how difficult it is to totally sterilize something, be it hospital equipment or a spacecraft bound for a Martian landing. They’re tough – have you ever read about a mass extinction event where a bacterial species, unlike say the multicellular dinosaurs, went poof? Microbes are easy to transport. They can be blasted off the surface of the Earth, shielded from radiation by the debris, and survive to land on another world and be fruitful and multiply. There’s little doubt that somewhere way out there, terrestrial bacteria have hitched a ride to the stars, bolding going where lots of microbes have gone before! Translated, I firmly expect that the universe is teaming with life in all sorts of places. The less than glamorous catch is that LGM is not going to stand for Little Green Men, but Little Green Microbes.

To be continued...

Astrobiology: It’s Life Jim, But Not As We Know It: Part Three

Terrestrial life, extinct and past; or alive and present is amazingly diverse – in appearance anyway, but also in the environments they inhabit and the abilities they have to survive and thrive. But under the skin, our fundamental biochemistry, be you T-Rex, or be you a maple tree, or be you a bacteria, or be you, you, well you’re all as closely related as makes no odds. Extraterrestrial life will also be amazingly diverse – in appearance. However, the fundamental biochemistry that makes them, them, might be equally diverse relative to what makes you, you.

Traditional Hollywood fare, when it comes to envisioning aliens, tends to take the cost-friendly option and place actors in strange looking, but humanoid form costumes and associated makeup. Or, forget the costumes, maybe they just give the actors pointed ears or paint a few dots on them or wrinkle their noses! The question remains, will real, as opposed to Hollywood’s version of intelligent alien beings be humanoid, or something quite less than humanoid? At a more fundamental level, will the aliens, regardless of appearance, be composed of the exact same sorts of bio-friendly bio-elements and bio-molecules as we (we being terrestrial life forms collectively) are? Will our neighbors among the stars resemble life-as-we-know-it or life-not-as-we-know-it? And what really counts as life-not-as-we-know-it? Is it appearance, environmental habitat, abilities or is it chemistry?

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

Chemistry: Life-Not-As-We-Know-It: Humanoid, or non-humanoid life forms, with biochemistry very different from ours, is a reasonable rarity in science fiction. When such beings are depicted, they tend to be pure energy entities (fairly easily done via special effects), or something resembling terrestrial life forms albeit given an exotic biochemistry. Star Trek’s Horta are a case in point. 

It’s going to be chemistry, not physiology that ultimately dictates life-not-as-we-know-it. Substitute liquid ammonia or ethane for water; silicon for carbon; copper for iron in the blood (Mr. Spock, anyone?), the literature of speculative astrobiology, not to mention the literature of science fiction as well as sci-fi TV series and films are relatively rare of really alien aliens, everything from pure energy beings to solid rock and crystalline life forms, but hardly non-existent. Alas, life-not-as-we-know-it, that is non-CHON (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen & Nitrogen) life has been at best a ‘what if’ scientific and literary speculation of the purest kind. When subjected by biochemical specialists to critical examination, non-CHON biochemistries were found wanting as likely viable alternatives. For example, replacing carbon with silicon would have oxygen breathing aliens exhale not carbon dioxide but silicon dioxide – sand! Translated, we find the devil’s in the biochemical details as it were. While the possibility for alternative biochemistries can not be totally dismissed, we know CHON life can exist, so taking that certainty, we run with that first and foremost, when, in the first instance, looking for ET.

Really Far Out, Star Scout: Dark Life Composed of Dark Matter and Fueled by Dark Energy: However, while on the subject of life-not-as-we-know-it, you’re in for a bit of a surprise.

You are a minority, and it has nothing to do with your sex, age, blood type, religion, racial or ethnic characteristics, I.Q., or any other similar or related thing.

You are a minority, even a rarity, in that all the stuffs (matter and energy) that make you, you, and make you tick, is in itself a minority or a rarity in the cosmos, and it’s not because most of the cosmos is ‘empty’ space (not that in quantum theory space can ever be 100% empty). All that you experience (see, hear, feel, smell and taste) around you, be it from your immediate surrounds out to the farthest reaches of the cosmos is the result of just 4% (or thereabouts) of the ‘stuff’ we know and love – electrons and positrons, protons (composed in turn of quarks) and antiprotons, neutrons (again in turn composed of quarks) and antineutrons, neutrinos and antineutrinos, photons (electromagnetism), the theoretical to date undetected gravitons (gravity), gluons (the strong nuclear force), etc. And 4% of anything represents a minority, even approaches the definition of rarity.

The other 96% (or thereabouts) of the cosmos is made up apparently of both ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’, which isn’t your run of the mill electrons, protons, neutrons, electromagnetism, gravity (although ‘dark matter’ exhibits a positive gravity akin to normal matter.), etc. yet can and does interact with the cosmos and its contents. It’s sort of like having a room full of 100 people, only 96 of them are ghosts, albeit physical enough to interact with the contents of the room (just like real ghosts allegedly do).

One needs to point out that thus far at least, there’s no actual known connection between ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ apart from the fact that neither is visible to us in the way that a star or light bulb is visible; thus, the common term ‘dark’. Both ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ have been detected by more indirect means, primarily their influences on the 4% of stuffs we can see.

The subject of astrobiology (as outlined above) deals mainly with the question of finding extraterrestrial life-as-we-know-it. That is, finding life like us based around traditional forms of matter and energy; life with similar chemistry, energy needs, and environmental requirements. However, astrobiologists do like to speculate and cast their minds far and wide and envision possible forms of life that fall in the category of life-not-as-we-know-it; life that makes use of exotic chemistries, unfamiliar energies, and (to us) extremely hostile environments. 

So, the question proposed is could a form of ‘dark life’ originate and evolve out of some combination of ‘dark matter’ and/or ‘dark energy’? (This would be an ultimate life-not-as-we-know-it prize for astrobiologists.)  Well, since we don’t really know what ‘dark matter’ is – its chemistry and other properties – and since we don’t have a handle on the nature of ‘dark energy’ either, one can’t conclude one way or another at this stage. Let’s just call it a whopping big “maybe”. Perhaps (the late) Sir Fred Hoyle’s Black Cloud concept as expressed in his sci-fi novel of that name, might not have been that far off the mark after all!

The major fly in this ointment is, I suspect, that ‘dark energy’ is a repulsive force, which at first glance, seems incompatible with life of any kind. Thus, for the moment, I’ll include it as a ‘dead end’. However, it’s early speculative days yet and there’s a long way to go before ruling anything either in, or out.

An idle thought however, we wonder what the missing 96% of the Universe is – just calling it ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ doesn’t tell us what it is. Perhaps a ‘dark energy/matter’ being wonders what the missing 4% of their Universe is composed of!

Further recommended readings:

Barlowe, Wayne Douglas & Summers, Ian; Barlowe’s Guide to Extra-Terrestrials; Methuen of Australia, Sydney; 1980:

Cockell, Charles S.; Impossible Extinction: Natural Catastrophes and the Supremacy of the Microbial World; Cambridge University Press; Cambridge; 2003:

Friend, Tim; The Third Kingdom: The Untold Story of Archaea and the Future of Biotechnology; Joseph Henry Press, Washington, D.C.; 2007:

Gates, Evalyn; Einstein’s Telescope: The Hunt for Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the Universe; W.W. Norton & Co., New York; 2009:

Hooper, Dan; Dark Cosmos: In Search of Our Universe’s Missing Mass and Energy; Smithsonian Books, New York; 2006:

Huyghe, Patrick; The Field Guide to Extraterrestrials; New English Library, London; 1997:

Krauss, Lawrence M.; Quintessence: The Mystery of Missing Mass in the Universe; Vintage, London; 2001:

Naha, Ed; Science Fiction Aliens: A Starlog Photo Guidebook; Starlog Magazine, New York; 1977:

Siegel, Richard & Suares, Jean-Claude; Alien Creatures; Harper & Row, Sydney and Melbourne; 1978: 

Ward, Peter; Life As We Do Not Know It: The NASA Search for (and Synthesis of) Alien Life; Penguin Books, New York; 2005:

Wharton, David A.; Life at the Limits: Organisms in Extreme Environments; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 2002:

Astrobiology: It’s Life Jim, But Not As We Know It: Part Two

Terrestrial life, extinct and past; or alive and present is amazingly diverse – in appearance anyway, but also in the environments they inhabit and the abilities they have to survive and thrive. But under the skin, our fundamental biochemistry, be you T-Rex, or be you a maple tree, or be you a bacteria, or be you, you, well you’re all as closely related as makes no odds. Extraterrestrial life will also be amazingly diverse – in appearance. However, the fundamental biochemistry that makes them, them, might be equally diverse relative to what makes you, you.

Traditional Hollywood fare, when it comes to envisioning aliens, tends to take the cost-friendly option and place actors in strange looking, but humanoid form costumes and associated makeup. Or, forget the costumes, maybe they just give the actors pointed ears or paint a few dots on them or wrinkle their noses! The question remains, will real, as opposed to Hollywood’s version of intelligent alien beings be humanoid, or something quite less than humanoid? At a more fundamental level, will the aliens, regardless of appearance, be composed of the exact same sorts of bio-friendly bio-elements and bio-molecules as we (we being terrestrial life forms collectively) are? Will our neighbors among the stars resemble life-as-we-know-it or life-not-as-we-know-it? And what really counts as life-not-as-we-know-it? Is it appearance, environmental habitat, abilities or is it chemistry?

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

So, here’s just one logically possible outward description of an advanced extraterrestrial intelligent life force with technology. In basic outline, I imagine a centaur-like structure, a being with four locomotion stubby tentacles ending in splayed out thick pads for ‘feet’. There are also four relatively long manipulative tentacles emanating from roughly chest height. Two of the tentacle’s tips manipulate objects in much the same way as one hand’s finder and opposable thumb manipulate objects. The four tentacles in total equal the manipulative abilities of our two hands. There are four eyes on elevated stalks at the top of the ‘head’ giving a 360 degree field of view. Any two adjacent eyes give a stereoscopic view – depth perception – covering 180 degrees, though it can see farther into the infra-red relative to ourselves because it’s parent star is cooler and radiates more energy in the infra-red than the visible part of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum. The body has a protective carapace and our being can withdraw its ‘leg’ and ‘arm’ tentacles inside if necessary like a turtle; ditto the soft ‘head’ structure, which has – you guessed it, four ears. Over all, the ‘skin’ is akin to thick tough leather. The being’s CPU ‘brain’ is located deep within the central body, not in the ‘head’, and so is well protected. Breathing is pretty much the same as ours – it has lungs. Ditto the digestive system. Like ourselves, it’s a carbon based life form and requires the same sorts of water intake as we require. The alien is native to a slightly lower gravity world than ours; its land based, and has a size roughly that of a large terrestrial dog or small sheep. There’s no tail.  

Apart from my quickie off-the-top-of-my-head imaginary creation, well, you also gotta give some, and I stress some, Hollywood and sci-fi writers’ full credit for at least trying to think a bit outside of the box. The central question remains the biochemistry one, not the appearance one. Terrestrial life forms are so diversified in appearance that it’s difficult to imagine any pattern, any symmetry (or lack of same) that hasn’t already been experimented with. However, physical appearance diversification is yet united in that diverse terrestrial life forms have collectively just a single overall biochemistry. Microbe or man; virus or vampire; plant or platypus; we’re all at the biochemical level near clones. So, we’ve had the diversification in outward appearance; might there equally be a diversification in what makes life, well, life?

But first, life has to have some abilities, and life has to exist within an environment that’s fit for, well, life. Both abilities and environments go way beyond life-as-we-know-it, if by that we restrict life-as-we-know-it to the very everyday familiar life forms that we perceive around us – even then, surprises abound.

Abilities: When it comes to special abilities relative to ourselves, well fish gotta swim (but so do dolphins, a paramecium, squid, penguins, some turtles; even we humans make a rather feeble go at swimming but we’re not in the same league, far less the same ballpark as fish, etc.). And birds gotta fly (but so do bats and many insects; humans are natural flyers too – as long as it’s straight down). Clearly lots of organisms can move faster than we can. Many organisms have had abilities that have enabled them to survive for multi-millions of years; billions if you include microorganisms. We’ve got a long way to go before we start making it in that ‘Guinness Book of Records’. Your dog can hear higher frequencies than you; your cat has a better sense of smell; many birds have sharper vision and many organisms can ‘see’ parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that we can’t.

But, not to worry, at least we tend to come top of the pops in the I.Q. category! Now the natural question is, what sort of evolved abilities or capabilities might intelligent aliens have that haven’t been thought of in anyone’s philosophy, apart from perhaps being mental giants and putting us to shame in that I.Q. category? 

Environment: When we think of the typical environment that life finds itself in, we tend to think of our own traditional environment, one that has a fairly narrow temperature range; predictable alternating daylight and darkness intervals; one relatively free of harmful radiation; a fairly narrow pressure range; also a very narrow range of an environment that’s not too acidic, not to alkaline; a near constant atmospheric composition, etc. We don’t often tend to think that life in general, terrestrial life in particular can survive, even thrive outside what’s comfortable to us. How wrong we are if we think that! Relatively few complex organisms exist in extreme environments, though examples would fill many an essay all by itself. We all know about animals that can live in Earth’s Polar Regions and in her ultra dry and hot deserts. We know that fish survive at the high pressure, eternally dark abyssal depths, and that some fish can bury into mud and cocoon themselves from drought for extended periods. Still, that’s peanuts compared to what some microorganisms can achieve. Without doing an exhaustive survey, you’ll find microbes surviving and thriving: high up in the atmosphere; kilometers beneath the surface of the earth; inside your digestive system; inside rocks; in battery acid equivalent environments; in extremely high saline environments; in extreme alkaline environments; in total darkness; in pressures that would crush you like an eggshell; in boiling water; in the near absence of water; in temperatures way below freezing; in toxic sludge; inside nuclear reactors; in environments totally free of oxygen. Some microbes can survive (but not thrive in) exposure to near absolute zero temperatures and the vacuum of outer space. The upshot is that the range of non-terrestrial planetary environments where we might detect, at least relatively simple life, has expanded to just about anywhere and everywhere. 

To be continued...

Exobiology: Bibliography: Part One

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. To investigate life-in-the-Universe one needs a solid grounding in the relevant literature. A comprehensive relevant bibliography would run to many thousands of pages and be rather off-putting. So, perhaps something on a slightly smaller scale might be more in order to help the novice get started. 

For something that doesn’t yet exist, extraterrestrial life, intelligent or otherwise, has hatched a massive amount of literature, both technical and popular, in English and otherwise. There are speculative books, articles, documentaries, etc. that number in the tens of thousands. Add the sci-fi contributions into the mix, and you have tens of thousands more entries. Here are just samplings of some of the non-fictional monographs that have touched on some of the topics raised so far.

Further Readings: Exobiology/Astrobiology in General

Aczel, Amir D.; Probability 1: The Book That Proves There Is Life In Outer Space; Harcourt, Inc., San Diego, California; 1998:

Barnett, Alex & Shostak, Seth; Cosmic Company: The Search for Life in the Universe; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 2003:  

Baross, John A. & Sullivan, Woodruff T. (Editors); Planets and Life: The Emerging Science of Astrobiology; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 2007:

Basalla, George; Civilized Life in the Universe: Scientists on Intelligent Extraterrestrials; Oxford University Press, Oxford; 2006:

Bova, Ben; Faint Echoes, Distant Stars: The Science and Politics of Finding Life Beyond Earth; Perennial, New York; 2005:

Clark, Andrew J.H. & Clark, David H.; Aliens: Can We Make Contact with Extraterrestrial Intelligence?; Fromm International, New York; 2000: 

Cohen, Jack & Stewart, Ian; Evolving the Alien: The Science of Extraterrestrial Life; Ebury Press, London; 2002: 

Darling, David; Life Everywhere: The Maverick Science of Astrobiology; Basic Books, New York; 2001:  

Genta, Giancarlo; Lonely Minds in the Universe: The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence; Copernicus Books, New York; 2007:

Heidmann, Jean; Extraterrestrial Intelligence; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 1995: 

Impey, Chris; The Living Cosmos: Our Search for Life in the Universe; Random House, New York; 2007:

Impey, Chris (Editor); Talking About Life: Conversations on Astrobiology; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 2010:

Jakosky, Bruce; The Search for Life on Other Planets; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 1998: 

Kasting, James; How to Find A Habitable Planet; Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey; 2010:

Koerner, David & LeVay, Simon; Here Be Dragons: The Scientific Quest for Extraterrestrial Life; Oxford University Press, New York; 2000:

Michaud, Michael A.G.; Contact with Alien Civilizations: Our Hopes and Fears about Encountering Extraterrestrials; Copernicus Books, New York; 2007:

Parker, Barry; Alien Life: The Search for Extraterrestrials and Beyond; Plenum Trade, New York; 1998:

Pickover, Clifford; The Science of Aliens; Basic Books, New York; 1998: 

Shapiro, Robert; Planetary Dreams: The Quest to Discover Life Beyond Earth; John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York; 1999:

Shostak, Seth; Sharing the Universe: Perspectives on Extraterrestrial Life; Berkeley Hills Books, Berkeley, California; 1998: 

Sullivan, Walter; We Are Not Alone: The Continuing Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence; Dutton Books, New York; 2^nd Edition; 1993:

Verma, Surendra; Why Aren’t They Here? The Question of Life on Other Worlds; Icon Books, Cambridge; 2007:

Further Readings: Life Not As We Know It

Ward, Peter; Life As We Do Not Know It: The NASA Search for (and Synthesis of) Alien Life; Penguin Books, New York; 2005:

Further Readings: The Origin and Evolution of Our Universe: Cosmology

Burbidge, Geoffrey & Narlikar, Jayant V.; Facts and Speculations in Cosmology; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 2008:

Carr, Bernard (Editor); Universe or Multiverse?; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 2007:

Chown, Marcus; Afterglow of Creation: Decoding the Message from the Beginning of Time; Faber and Faber, London; Revised Edition; 2010:

Chown, Marcus; The Never-Ending Days of Being Dead: Dispatches from the Frontline of Science; Faber and Faber, London; 2007:

Clegg, Brian; Before the Big Bang: The Prehistory of Our Universe; St. Martin’s Press, N.Y.; 2009:

Davies, Paul; The Goldilocks Enigma: Why Is the Universe Just Right for Life?;

Allen Lane, London

; 2006:

Gates, Evalyn; Einstein’s Telescope: The Hunt for Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the Universe; W.W. Norton & Co., New York; 2009:

Gilmore, Robert; Once Upon A Universe: Not-So-Grimm Tales of Cosmology; Copernicus Books, New York; 2003:

Gleiser, Marcelo; Imperfect Creation: Cosmos, Life and Nature’s Hidden Code; Black, Inc.; Melbourne, Victoria; 2010:

Goldsmith, Donald; The Runaway Universe: The Race to Find the Future of the Cosmos; Basic Books, New York; 2000:

Gribbin, John; In Search of the Multiverse;

Allen Lane, London

; 2009:

Guth, Alan H.; The Inflationary Universe: The Quest for A New Theory of Cosmic Origins; Vintage, London; 1998:

Hawking, Stephen; A Brief History of Time; Bantam Books, New York; 2^nd Edition; 1996:

Hawking, Stephen & Mlodinow, Leonard; A Briefer History of Time; Bantam Press, London; 2005:

Hawking, Stephen & Mlodinow, Leonard; The Grand Design; Bantam Press, London; 2010:

Hooper, Dan; Dark Cosmos: In Search of Our Universe’s Missing Mass and Energy; Smithsonian Books, New York; 2006:

Kaku, Michio; Parallel Worlds: The Science of Alternative Universes and Our Future in the Cosmos; Penguin Books, London; 2005:

Moring, Gary F.; The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Theories of the Universe; Alpha Books, New York; 2002:

Rees, Martin; Before the Beginning: Our Universe and Others; Free Press, London; 2002:

Silk, Joseph; On the Shores of the Unknown: A Short History of the Universe; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 2005:

Silk, Joseph; The Infinite Cosmos: Questions from the Frontiers of Cosmology; Oxford University Press, Oxford; 2006:

Singh, Simon; Big Bang: The Most Important Scientific Discovery of All Time and Why You Need to Know About It; Harper Perennial, London; 2005:

Vilenkin, Alex; Many Worlds in One: The Search for Other Universes; Hill & Wang, New York; 2006:

Further Readings: The Origin of Life and Panspermia

Crick, Francis; Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature; Simon and Schuster, New York; 1981: 

Davies, Paul; The Fifth Miracle: The Search for the Origin of Life;

Allen Lane, Ringwood, Victoria

; 1998:

Hoyle, Fred & Wickramasinghe, Chandra; Lifecloud: The Origin of Life in the Universe; J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, London; 1978:

Hoyle, Fred & Wickramasinghe, Chandra; Diseases from Space; J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd, London; 1979

Ponnamperuma, Cyril (Editor); Comets and the Origin of Life; D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland; 1981:

Seargent, David A. J.; Genesis Stone? The Murchison Meteorite and the Beginnings of Life; Karagi Publications, The Entrance, NSW: 1991:

Further Readings: Microbes

Cockell, Charles S.; Impossible Extinction: Natural catastrophes and the Supremacy of the Microbial World; Cambridge University Press, Canbridge; 2003:

Friend, Tim; The Third Domain: The Untold Story of Archaea and the Future of Biotechnology; Joseph Henry Press, Washington, D.C.; 2007:

Gold, Thomas; The Deep, Hot Biosphere; Springer-Verlag: 1999:  

Taylor, Michael Ray; Dark Life: Martian Nanobacteria, Rock-Eating Cave Bugs, and Other Extreme Organisms of Inner Earth and Outer Space; Scribner, New York, 1999:

Wharton, David A.; Life at the Limits: Organisms in Extreme Environments; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 2002:

Exobiology: Life Not As We Know It: Part Two

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. To investigate life-in-the-Universe one needs to look at what the most likely sort of extraterrestrial life will. Terrestrial life, extinct and past; or alive and present is amazingly diverse – in appearance anyway, but also in the environments they inhabit and the abilities they have to survive and thrive. But under the skin, our fundamental biochemistry, be you T-Rex, or be you a maple tree, or be you a bacteria, or be you, you, well you’re all as closely related as makes no odds. Extraterrestrial life will also be amazingly diverse – in appearance. However, the fundamental biochemistry that makes them, them, might be equally diverse relative to what makes you, you.

Life has to have some abilities, and life has to exist within an environment that’s fit for, well, life. Both abilities and environments go way beyond life-as-we-know-it, if by that we restrict life-as-we-know-it to the very everyday familiar life forms that we perceive around us – even then, surprises abound.

Abilities: When it comes to special abilities relative to ourselves, well fish gotta swim (but so do dolphins, a paramecium, squid, penguins, some turtles; even we humans make a rather feeble go at swimming but we’re not in the same league, far less the same ballpark as fish, etc.). And birds gotta fly (but so do bats and many insects; humans are natural flyers too – as long as it’s straight down). Clearly lots of organisms can move faster than we can. Many organisms have had abilities that have enabled them to survive for multi-millions of years; billions if you include microorganisms. We’ve got a long way to go before we start making it in that ‘Guinness Book of Records’. Your dog can hear higher frequencies than you; your cat has a better sense of smell; many birds have sharper vision and many organisms can ‘see’ parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that we can’t.

But, not to worry, at least we tend to come top of the pops in the I.Q. category! Now the natural question is, what sort of evolved abilities or capabilities might intelligent aliens have that haven’t been thought of in anyone’s philosophy, apart from perhaps being mental giants and putting us to shame in that I.Q. category? 

Environment: When we think of the typical environment that life finds itself in, we tend to think of our own traditional environment, one that has a fairly narrow temperature range; predictable alternating daylight and darkness intervals; one relatively free of harmful radiation; a fairly narrow pressure range; also a very narrow range of an environment that’s not too acidic, not to alkaline; a near constant atmospheric composition, etc. We don’t often tend to think that life in general, terrestrial life in particular can survive, even thrive outside what’s comfortable to us. How wrong we are if we think that! Relatively few complex organisms exist in extreme environments, though examples would fill many an essay all by itself. We all know about animals that can live in Earth’s Polar Regions and in her ultra dry and hot deserts. We know that fish survive at the high pressure, eternally dark abyssal depths, and that some fish can bury into mud and cocoon themselves from drought for extended periods. Still, that’s peanuts compared to what some microorganisms can achieve. Without doing an exhaustive survey, you’ll find microbes surviving and thriving: high up in the atmosphere; kilometers beneath the surface of the earth; inside your digestive system; inside rocks; in battery acid equivalent environments; in extremely high saline environments; in extreme alkaline environments; in total darkness; in pressures that would crush you like an eggshell; in boiling water; in the near absence of water; in temperatures way below freezing; in toxic sludge; inside nuclear reactors; in environments totally free of oxygen. Some microbes can survive (but not thrive in) exposure to near absolute zero temperatures and the vacuum of outer space. The upshot is that the range of non-terrestrial planetary environments where we might detect, at least relatively simple life, has expanded to just about anywhere and everywhere. 

Chemistry: Life-Not-As-We-Know-It: Humanoid, or non-humanoid life forms, with biochemistry very different from ours, is a reasonable rarity in science fiction. When such beings are depicted, they tend to be pure energy entities (fairly easily done via special effects), or something resembling terrestrial life forms albeit given an exotic biochemistry. Star Trek’s Horta are a case in point. 

It’s going to be chemistry, not physiology that ultimately dictates life-not-as-we-know-it. Substitute liquid ammonia or ethane for water; silicon for carbon; copper for iron in the blood (Mr. Spock, anyone?), the literature of speculative astrobiology, not to mention the literature of science fiction as well as sci-fi TV series and films are relatively rare of really alien aliens, everything from pure energy beings to solid rock and crystalline life forms, but hardly non-existent. Alas, life-not-as-we-know-it, that is non-CHON (Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen & Nitrogen) life has been at best a ‘what if’ scientific and literary speculation of the purest kind. When subjected by biochemical specialists to critical examination, non-CHON biochemistries were found wanting as likely viable alternatives. For example, replacing carbon with silicon would have oxygen breathing aliens exhale not carbon dioxide but silicon dioxide – sand! Translated, we find the devil’s in the biochemical details as it were. While the possibility for alternative biochemistries can not be totally dismissed, we know CHON life can exist, so taking that certainty, we run with that first and foremost, when, in the first instance, looking for ET.

Really Far Out, Star Scout: Dark Life Composed of Dark Matter and Fueled by Dark Energy: However, while on the subject of life-not-as-we-know-it, you’re in for a bit of a surprise.

You are a minority, and it has nothing to do with your sex, age, blood type, religion, racial or ethnic characteristics, I.Q., or any other similar or related thing.

You are a minority, even a rarity, in that all the stuffs (matter and energy) that make you, you, and make you tick, is in itself a minority or a rarity in the cosmos, and it’s not because most of the cosmos is ‘empty’ space (not that in quantum theory space can ever be 100% empty). All that you experience (see, hear, feel, smell and taste) around you, be it from your immediate surrounds out to the farthest reaches of the cosmos is the result of just 4% (or thereabouts) of the ‘stuff’ we know and love – electrons and positrons, protons (composed in turn of quarks) and antiprotons, neutrons (again in turn composed of quarks) and antineutrons, neutrinos and antineutrinos, photons (electromagnetism), the theoretical to date undetected gravitons (gravity), gluons (the strong nuclear force), etc. And 4% of anything represents a minority, even approaches the definition of rarity.

The other 96% (or thereabouts) of the cosmos is made up apparently of both ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’, which isn’t your run of the mill electrons, protons, neutrons, electromagnetism, gravity (although ‘dark matter’ exhibits a positive gravity akin to normal matter.), etc. yet can and does interact with the cosmos and its contents. It’s sort of like having a room full of 100 people, only 96 of them are ghosts, albeit physical enough to interact with the contents of the room (just like real ghosts allegedly do).

One needs to point out that thus far at least, there’s no actual known connection between ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ apart from the fact that neither is visible to us in the way that a star or light bulb is visible; thus, the common term ‘dark’. Both ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ have been detected by more indirect means, primarily their influences on the 4% of stuffs we can see.

The subject of astrobiology (as outlined above) deals mainly with the question of finding extraterrestrial life-as-we-know-it. That is, finding life like us based around traditional forms of matter and energy; life with similar chemistry, energy needs, and environmental requirements. However, astrobiologists do like to speculate and cast their minds far and wide and envision possible forms of life that fall in the category of life-not-as-we-know-it; life that makes use of exotic chemistries, unfamiliar energies, and (to us) extremely hostile environments. 

So, the question proposed is could a form of ‘dark life’ originate and evolve out of some combination of ‘dark matter’ and/or ‘dark energy’? (This would be an ultimate life-not-as-we-know-it prize for astrobiologists.)  Well, since we don’t really know what ‘dark matter’ is – its chemistry and other properties – and since we don’t have a handle on the nature of ‘dark energy’ either, one can’t conclude one way or another at this stage. Let’s just call it a whopping big “maybe”. Perhaps (the late) Sir Fred Hoyle’s Black Cloud concept as expressed in his sci-fi novel of that name, might not have been that far off the mark after all!

The major fly in this ointment is, I suspect, that ‘dark energy’ is a repulsive force, which at first glance, seems incompatible with life of any kind. Thus, for the moment, I’ll include it as a ‘dead end’. However, it’s early speculative days yet and there’s a long way to go before ruling anything either in, or out.

An idle thought however, we wonder what the missing 96% of the Universe is – just calling it ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ doesn’t tell us what it is. Perhaps a ‘dark energy/matter’ being wonders what the missing 4% of their Universe is composed of!

Exobiology: Orphaned Rogue Interstellar Planets

Exobiology was the original term given to the sciences central to the question of life-in-the-Universe. It’s now been largely replaced by Astrobiology, but I’ll stick with the original. When we think of life out there, we think of life on other planets, and by extension planets in orbit around other stars. But, might not the possible planetary abodes for hosting life forms be greatly expanded when extended to interstellar rogue planets?

Lots of effort has been put into discovering the existence of extra-solar planets and thus confirming that our own solar system isn’t some sort of anomaly. Hundreds of extra-solar planets have now been found and in the databanks, with more being found every week. However, the discovery of extra-solar earth-like planets remains the Holy Grail. Detection of Earth-like planets are at the current cutting edge of technology, maybe a shade beyond that edge, but as techniques and technology continue to evolve, it’s only a matter of time – not a question of if, but when. Meantime, there’s a whole other set of extra-solar planetary objects or abodes, probably undetectable with even foreseeable technology. These extra-solar abodes are the sunless orphans (technically termed ‘rogue planets’ or maybe ‘interstellar planets’) that exist in deep interstellar (perhaps even intergalactic) space itself. The number of orphaned interstellar planets could easily equal, or even vastly exceed, all the planets in all the solar systems in the Milky Way Galaxy combined. Could such orphans expand the range of abodes for life in the cosmos? There is a real possibility that orphan planets could host viable communities (ecosystems) of microbes based on chemosynthesis.

Our solar system today probably seems like a pretty well ordered place – it runs like clockwork, is predictable, and it’s pretty benign on the whole. But, it was not always so, and may not always remain that way in the future. In those early chaotic when the proto-Sun and the proto-planets were forming, the orbital dynamics were anything but well ordered. Collisions and close encounters between these proto-objects, and associated interacting gravitational forces at play meant that some bodies spiralled into the proto-Sun; others in their gravitational dances were ejected, in a slingshot sort of way, from the proto-solar system altogether. 

In the future, as our Sun and solar system along with hundreds of thousands of other ‘nearby’ suns (stars) orbit the galactic centre, distances between stars vary, sometime coming close enough for their respective gravitational forces to cause more dance-and-throw monkey wrenches into the peace and tranquillity and well-ordered-ness of the respective stellar systems and debris (like planets orbiting their parent suns). As before, some objects could be perturbed and dislodged and fall into their sun, or be ejected from the gravitational control of that sun altogether and head out into space and a lonely, endless night, existence.  Also, the ejection process will be alive and well in binary (tug of war) star systems (and there are an awful lot of them about).

While there’s nothing to be said for those unfortunate bodies (and life forms – if any) that get cataclysmically into their parent suns, it’s not quite ‘The End’ for those now sunless orphans. There could be multi-thousands (or more) of orphaned planets (of all sizes and makeup) in deep space beyond the bright light and solar energy of a sun. There could be an orphan planet within a light year of us and we’d never know or suspect.

Could orphan planets form all by themselves in the depths of lonely space? Well, if a large interstellar dust and gas cloud can gravitationally collapse to form a star(s) and associated stellar (solar) system, I fail to see why a smaller interstellar dust and gas cloud couldn’t collapse to form a planet sized object, probably a ‘failed star’ like a Jupiter, maybe with moons. From that of course it is easy to extrapolate and suggest such a Jovian ‘failed star’ might have smaller abodes (planets) form and orbit same – a nearly invisible solar system. Or perhaps it’s just an orphan planet with associated moons. Either definition amounts to the same thing – a rose by any other name applies.

Regardless of initial origin, conventional wisdom would suggest that these orphans must be lifeless, even if before the event they had life.

Once upon a time it was absolutely gospel (and no correspondence would be entered into the contrary) that our Sun was the be all and end all of the existence of terrestrial life. No sun; no life. All life ultimately depended on photosynthetic plants which in turn couldn’t exist without sunlight. But gospel ain’t gospel any longer! Today we know about chemosynthesis (organisms that can produce organics from inorganic substances and derive energy from the process.)

But, an orphaned planet has severe problems quite apart from a lack of solar energy. What about heat? Sources of heat (apart from a parent sun) include gravitational contraction, radioactivity, chemical activity, friction, etc. So heat shouldn’t be too much of a problem for some planetary abodes. Rocky planets like Earth have radioactive elements that partly comprise their crusts and interiors, and radioactive decay gives off heat, and rock is a good insulator. I doubt if chemical activity or friction will contribute much, but for Jupiter-sized planets, gravitational contraction means that these types of planets (like Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune) give off more heat energy than they receive from the Sun.

Of course friction could be a source of heat in some rare cases. One other heating scenario is plausible if an orphan planet had a satellite(s) of the right composition. The satellite(s) might be warmed by tidal frictional forces courtesy of their parent orphaned planet akin to what we observe on Io and Europa. These satellites are heated by the effects of Jupiter’s tidal attractions on the interiors of these moons which get flexed and stretched and compressed, ever alternating between extremes. The resulting friction results in heating. An alternative version could be two orphaned planets of roughly the same size, orbiting each other in relatively close proximity. Each would mutually tidally heat the other, but only for a while. You can’t produce heat energy out of nothing, and the price paid would be their orbital separation increasing until the gravitational bonds weaken so much that you’d have – for all intents and purposes – two separate orphaned planets. This is akin to our own Moon which is retreating from Mother Earth, albeit ever so slowly, over time.

But heat tends to be the final end waste product in any energy chain of events. Heat itself is not useful as an energy source for living things; albeit quite useful in contributing to the environmental friendliness in which organisms thrive, like keeping temperatures suitable for liquid water or for biochemical reactions. I mean an infrared lamp may feel real good, but it’s not providing you with any calories!

Could one have an origin of life (biogenesis) event on an orphaned planet? Why not, providing you had the appropriate chemicals, all mixing it up in an appropriate liquid medium (water most likely), and an energy source(s), and lots of time.

So, an orphan planet could have had a biogenesis event, coupled with suitable chemicals for chemosynthesis and heat. What more do you want! Well, are there any positives to be had?

Are there any obvious advantages to being a life form on an orphan planet? I think so. What if your initial parent star were a variable star, or a very massive star that’s going to have a very short lifespan, maybe terminate in a supernova - advantage orphan. Maybe your initial orbit was so lopsided (elliptical) that you alternatively froze and fried – advantage orphan. Gravitational (tidal) locking – keeping one hemisphere always turned toward one point, say the surface of your parent star – causing temperature extremes, is now irrelevant. The tilt of your axis (which can also cause extremes in heating/cooling is now also irrelevant. Your weather, such as it is, would be relatively gentle without solar energy driving it. Then too, inhabiting deep space via-a-visa crowded debris filled solar system reduces drastically those nasty collision impacts. A thick Jovian (Jupiter) type atmosphere or thick ice cap is probably good shielding from radiation, though even a nearby supernova might be bad news. You’re also insulated from all those nasty bug-eyed-monster alien types. They can easily find solar systems, but not orphans. In any event, your orphan planet isn’t very desirable real estate to alien invaders!