Mythologies of the Solar System: Part Three

The names of the moons, planets and of course the Sun itself are not just household names un-associated with anything but these celestial bodies, but bodies usually named after selected characters from ancient Greek and Roman mythology. There are tales to be told about them; some fleshing out to do. These are just a few of the highlights.

The planets of the solar system are named after gods and goddesses and are known by their Roman, not Greek names. Here I’ll put the Greek equivalents in brackets afterwards. The satellites of these planets for the most part tend to be the Greek names associated in one form or another with the parent body or the god/goddess in question. Moons (and major asteroids) are identified with an asterisk.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

MYTHOLOGY AND THE OUTER SOLAR SYSTEM

SATURN (Cronus) was one of those first generation Titans, offspring of Gaia and her son Uranus. He mated with Rhea, and produced from that union the original half-dozen gods and goddesses that would eventually become the Olympians. But the transition from Saturn’s offspring to become the rulers of Mount Olympus was an epic that could just about out-epic anything Hollywood has ever done. Saturn is known for two things in particular – castrating his daddy and snacking on his kids - Yum, yum. 

*Dione is a very obscure goddess who may have been a Titan or a Nereid or an Oceanid. Her name seems to be a feminine form of Zeus, and that brings in the alternative version of the origin of Aphrodite – a traditional birth via the union of randy Zeus and Dione (whoever she was). At least she’s now immortalized as a satellite of Saturn.

*Enceladus was one of the Gigantes. The Gigantes were offspring of Gaia, fertilized by the blood/semen of her son and lover Uranus who was ultimately castrated by Cronus (a son of Gaia and Uranus back when he had his private parts intact). In the Gigantomachia (the battle between the Olympian gods and the giants), Athena deposited Enceladus under Mount Etna and the fire and brimstone breath of Enceladus accounts for that volcano’s well, fire and brimstone. This is another abode thought as a possible site where alien life forms might one day be discovered.

*Hyperion was a Titan god, born of Gaia (Gaea) and her son, Uranus. He would become an early god of the Sun.

*Iapetus was another Titan god, born of Gaia (Gaea) and her son, Uranus. He would become the father of Prometheus, who ultimately is remembered for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to mankind.

*Janus was the Roman god of beginnings, doorways, entrances, gateways, etc. and is depicted with two faces, one each facing forward (to the future) and the other backward (to the past). January, the beginning, is named after him.

*Mimas, like Enceladus, was one of the Gigantes of Greek mythologies. Like the other giant sons of Gaia and Uranus, Mimas had serpents for legs and was born fully armored. Mimas was slain by Hephaestus during the war against the Olympians by a volley of molten iron.

*Phoebe was a Titan goddess, born of Gaia (Gaea) and her son, Uranus. Phoebe is identified as an early moon goddess. In another context, the goddess Artemis sometimes was associated with an alias of Phoebe. Finally, Helen of Troy had a half-sister Phoebe.

*Rhea was another Titan goddess, born of Gaia (Gaea) and her son, Uranus. She married Cronus (Saturn) and from that union was born what ultimately became the original half-dozen Olympian gods and goddesses. Cronus, out to eliminate potential future rivals, swallowed the first five of these kids, but Rhea tricked him when it came to the sixth and last, Zeus. She spirited Zeus away to Crete to be raised, and tricked Cronus into swallowing a stone disguised as the baby Zeus.

*Tethys was yet another Titan goddess, born of Gaia (Gaea) and her son, Uranus who would become the most ancient goddess of the sea.

*Titan is the largest moon of Saturn, a moon of interest to astrobiologists, and the only natural satellite to have an extensive atmosphere. In fact, Titan is larger than the planet Mercury and way lager than our own satellite, Luna. The mythology connection is that the original dozen Titans (some of which are named satellites of Saturn) were one of a set of offspring between Gaia and Uranus. Among the second generation of Titans are several household names like Atlas and Prometheus. They were overthrown in the Titanomachy (The War of the Titans) by Zeus and his fellow Olympians. 

URANUS (alternative spelling Ouranos) was the original sky god, the son, via parthenogenesis, of Gaea (Gaia) who shacked up with mum to produce all manner of deities, including monstrous ones. He’s known for having his privates sliced off by one of their Titan offspring, Saturn (Cronus). Saturn in turn got done like a dinner by one of his offspring, Jupiter (Zeus) but that’s another story.

*Ariel, Miranda, Oberon, Titania and Umbriel, the five major moons of Uranus, were named or chosen from the names of characters from the works of Shakespeare and Alexander Pope and thus, unfortunately, have near bugger-all to do with traditional Greek and Roman mythology. Bummer, as that spoils some potentially good stories relating back to and involving the parent god, Uranus.  

NEPTUNE (Poseidon) was the god of the sea, one of the original half-dozen Olympian gods and goddesses, brother to Zeus, Hades, Hera, Hestia and Demeter. All of Neptune’s known 13 satellites are named for Green and Roman water deities or groups of minor water gods. The major two are Nereid and Triton.

*Nereid – the Nereids (plural) were nymphs of the sea, the 50 daughters of the Mediterranean Sea god Nereus. Among the famous of the Nereids – goddess all – were Thetis (mother of Achilles), Galatea and Amphitrite (who married Poseidon). 

*Triton was another sea god, a son of Poseidon and the Nereid goddess Amphitrite, a nymph of the sea who became Queen of the Sea when she wed Poseidon. The typical depiction of Triton is that of a merman – human head and torso; one or two fishy (or maybe dolphin) tails. He too has a trident and a conch shell which when blown can calm the stormy waves. Like father, like son, Triton also had a bit of an eye for the ladies, especially beach-babes. Triton favors in a positive light for assisting Jason and the Argonauts in their saga. 

PLUTO (Hades) was god of the underworld. In the Greek version, Hades (the god) administered Hades (the underworld), so the name of the ruler and the place ruled were one and the same. Within recent times, Pluto was officially downgraded from planet to dwarf planet status, which made a lot of traditionalists very unhappy.

*Charon was the son of Erebus (the god of underground darkness) and Nyx (goddess of night), who played the role of the ferryman who rowed the newly deceased across the River Styx to Hades, the underworld. As a reward, or a fare, he got a coin in payment – no coin, no crossing. The parentage and place of employment are ideal for a satellite so far out from the Sun.

*Hydra (discovered in 2005) was named after that famed beastie slain by Hercules as one of his dozen labors in Greco-Roman mythology. Hydra was one of numerous monstrous offspring from Typhon and Echidna, themselves monsters. 

*Nix (a deliberate alternative spelling of Nyx) was a Greek goddess of night, one of the original deities conceived from the original state of the universe, Chaos. Nyx was the mother of Charon. Like Hydra, Nix the satellite was discovered in 2005.

ERIS is another dwarf planet, a trans-Neptunian object even larger that Pluto discovered in 2005. In fact it’s the most massive of all dwarf ‘planets’ in our solar system, even though it’s three times farther removed from the Sun than Pluto. Eris is a Greek goddess, the personification of strife and discord.

*Dysnomia in mythology is the daughter of the goddess Eris.   

NEMESIS (Fortuna was the Roman counterpart) was the asexual product of the goddess Nyx (night) and she was the goddess of retribution and agent of vengeance. Originally she was just one who dispensed fortune or luck without predetermined rewards or punishments, but morphed into a goddess of justice. The ‘Wheel of Fortune’ is thus associated with her. The celestial Nemesis is a hypothetical dwarf star binary companion to our Sun, a faint stellar object that has an extreme elliptical orbit that beings it close to the solar system once every 26 million years, which when extrapolated backwards, was useful in explaining periodic mass extinctions on Earth. Alas, all searches for this dwarf companion star have turned up negative, and the hypothesis is pretty much in scientific limbo today. 

Mythologies of the Solar System: Part Two

The names of the moons, planets and of course the Sun itself are not just household names unassociated with anything but these celestial bodies, but bodies usually named after selected characters from ancient Greek and Roman mythology. There are tales to be told about them; some fleshing out to do. These are just a few of the highlights.

The planets of the solar system are named after gods and goddesses and are known by their Roman, not Greek names. Here I’ll put the Greek equivalents in brackets afterwards. The satellites of these planets for the most part tend to be the Greek names associated in one form or another with the parent body or the god/goddess in question. Moons (and major asteroids) are identified with an asterisk.

Continued from yesterday’s blog…

MYTHOLOGY AND THE OUTER SOLAR SYSTEM

JUPITER (Zeus) was king of the mountain – Mount Olympus that is. He, after a series of ‘wars in heaven’ (with the Titans) and on earth (with the Giants) and finally with the daddy of all monsters, Typhon, claimed the right to be worshiped as King of the Gods, by all lesser gods and goddesses, demigods and demigoddesses, as well as all of the great unwashed – the mortals comprising humanity. Apart from being fast on the draw with his trademark thunderbolts, he’s most noted for being even faster on the draw with his private parts. No Mounties or bounty hunters ever perused their quarry better or with more determination than our always horny Jupiter/Zeus, as we shall see immediately below (though with over five dozen satellites, only a few can be entered into in this short essay).

*Amalthea: Jupiter (Zeus) as a young infant, was spirited and hidden away in Crete by his mother, Rhea from his daddy, Saturn (Cronus) because daddy didn’t want any sons of his eventually growing up and challenging him for supreme power. Saturn thus kept them out of his harms way by swallowing them. Rhea saved the last (Jupiter) by trickery. Anyway, young Jupiter was reared and looked after by local nymphs on Crete, especially by Amalthea. She’s also known for having a horn, the ‘Horn of Plenty’ a cornucopia that provided limitless food and drink for whoever possessed it.  

*Ananke, the goddess of inevitability and personification of destiny, necessity and fate was the mother of the Moirai by Zeus. The Moirai, also known as The Fates, were the trio that spun the thread of life of mortals from birth to death and thus controlled everyone’s destiny. Even Zeus was powerless against their will.

*Callisto was the daughter of the King of Arcady, and she had the misfortune to have Zeus fall for her. Callisto was associated with the virgin goddess Artemis. When Zeus raped Callisto, she got in a family way (in mythology, every rape results in a pregnancy otherwise there’s no point to the rape in the first place). This rape ultimately produces a son, Arcas. Artemis, being the virgin, was livid and banished Callisto from any further association with her. Hera (Mrs. Zeus) in the meantime assumed Callisto was a willing partner to her wayward hubby and in revenge turned Callisto into a bear. Years later, Arcas, out hunting, ran across that bear and not realizing that it was mom, shot her dead. Zeus then placed Callisto into the zodiac as Ursa Major, the Great Bear (or the Big Dipper); Arcas ultimately got his place in the heavens too as the Little Bear (or the Little Dipper).

*Carme was the mother by Zeus (who else?) of the virginal huntress Britomartis, a Minoan or Cretan goddess. Carme assisted in the harvest of the grain.

*Elara was the mother of the giant, Tityos. Tityos was fathered by you know who – randy Zeus. Tityos met a bad end, killed on the behest of Hera by Artemis and Apollo, and forever tortured in Tartarus (a subdivision of Hades) by a couple of vultures who liked liver for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Fortunately for the vultures, Tityos’s liver kept regenerating so they never lacked for food.

*Europa was the daughter of a Phoenician king. Zeus got the hots for her and turned himself into a snow-white bull (gods can shape-shift; it’s one of their major superpowers and that’s no bull) and approached Europa in that form. Europa playfully climbs on the Zeus-as-bull’s back. Zeus-the-bull then dives into the sea with Europa on his back and swims out to Crete. Once there he reverts back into his ‘human’ form and they made mad passionate love together and in the fullness of time Europa gave birth to triplets, one of which she named Minos. Zeus, ever thoughtful, also gave her some other gifts as well for her troubles. Europa ultimately married the king of Crete. Ultimately her son, Minos, assumed or claimed the throne. That’s why Crete’s ancient civilization is called the Minoan society. Europa is the only person having an entire continent named after them – Europe. As an aside, Europa is one of the few celestial bodies of interest to those on the lookout for potential sites where extraterrestrial life might exist.

*Ganymede: Abductions by the gods are by no means unknown or uncommon. In Greek mythology, a young handsome lad was Ganymede. He was abducted by Zeus, shape-shifted in the form of an eagle. Zeus favored the ladies, goddesses, demigoddesses, even mortal women, but for a catamite change of pace now and again… Ganymede was rewarded for his services by eternal youth and immortality, eventually placed in the sky as the constellation Aquarius. His daddy (Tros) was also compensated with a gift of fine horses.

*Himalia was a nymph who bore a trio of sons to Zeus or of course the Roman equivalent, Jupiter.

*Io was the daughter of the first king of Argos (what’s it about kings and their daughters already – that plot device has reached its use by date). She of course caught the lustful eye of Zeus. Hera (Mrs. Zeus) got suspicious, so Zeus turned Io into a cow as a disguise. Hera (knowing full well what was afoot) of course assumed the cow was a gift for her from her hubby since he obviously had no use for a cow, so Zeus had no option but to agree that that of course was what he had intended all along. Hera then had the cow guarded by the multi-eyed giant Argus. Zeus, needing to get Io back, got Hermes (Mercury to the Romans) to kill Argus. Hera in revenge plagued Io-the-cow with a hornet. Finally a truce was called. Zeus promised to behave (pull the other one) and Io was reverted back to human form and reunited with her worried daddy – the king.  

*Leda was of course the daughter of a king, and in turn married a king, in this case a king of Sparta. Zeus, of course, took a shine to Leda, and took the form of a swan and flew into Leda’s arms seeking ‘protection’ from another predatory bird – that’s his story and he’s sticking to it. Anyway, somehow or other (Zeus may have turned her into a goose) this cuddle made Leda pregnant and from this pregnancy she gave birth – she laid an egg, obviously! The egg hatched and out popped beautiful Helen. Helen, later known as Helen of Troy, was the face that launched a thousand ships (and then some). This was Zeus’s contribution to the Trojan War. In another version, the egg was the union between Zeus and the goddess of revenge, Nemesis. They gave the egg to Leda to hatch and raise the offspring up as her own. Leda had another child by Zeus – one of a pair of twins actually, Castor (by Zeus) and Pollux (by her husband) but known as the ‘Boys of Zeus’ or the ‘Heavenly Twins’ who eventually sailed with Jason as part of the Argonaut crew. 

*Lysithea was the daughter of Oceanus (a Titan, product of Gaia and Uranus) and one of Zeus’s many, many lovers.

*Pasiphae was the wife of King Minos of Crete, who, via a rather strange mating arrangement gave birth to the Minotaur. The rather remote connection to Jupiter is that Jupiter’s brother, Neptune, was behind all of this. Neptune was offended because Minos didn’t offer up as a sacrifice to Neptune a favorite bull, so in retaliation, Neptune saw to it that Minos’s wife became infatuated with, and lusted after a bull, the offspring being that well known hybrid, the Minotaur. 

*Thyone was once known as Semele, a lover of Zeus, who produced as offspring Dionysus, the god of wine and all around fun times. When Semele died as a result of Zeus revealing to her his true appearance – all the result of Hera’s trickery - and went to Hades, Dionysus rescued her from the underworld and brought her to Olympus, made her into a goddess along with providing the change of name. 

To be continued…

Mythologies of the Solar System: Part One

The names of the moons, planets and of course the Sun itself are not just household names unassociated with anything but these celestial bodies, but bodies usually named after selected characters from ancient Greek and Roman mythology. There are tales to be told about them; some fleshing out to do. These are just a few of the highlights.

The planets of the solar system are named after gods and goddesses and are known by their Roman, not Greek names. Here I’ll put the Greek equivalents in brackets afterwards. The satellites of these planets for the most part tend to be the Greek names associated in one form or another with the parent body or the god/goddess in question. Moons (and major asteroids) are identified with an asterisk.

Now you need to understand that at the time of the ancient Roman or Greek pantheon, only eight of the solar system’s celestial bodies were known. There were the three major bodies, the Sun, Moon, and Planet Earth itself of course (thus, way back then, you’d expect a mythological relationship between these three bodies), and the minor five visible planets – Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn which were just points of light to the ancients, though it’s not surprising the ancients matched celestial physics with the personalities of their gods and named them accordingly. Apart from our satellite, the Moon, no other moons were known to the ancients.

MYTHOLOGY AND THE INNER SOLAR SYSTEM

SOL (Helios) is obviously the god of the Sun. It surprises me that given the prominence and importance of this celestial object, our Sun, that the god of the Sun didn’t take pride of place as head of the gods. Be that as it may, Sol, a first generation Titan, was born of the god Hyperion and the goddess Theia, brother to Luna (Selene) and Aurora or Dawn (Eos). His job is to bring light to men and gods alike. He rides in the sky in a fiery chariot pulled by his team of fast horses. Sol, from his vantage point, sees and hears everything (which proved to be the undoing of an illicit relationship between Mars (Ares) and Venus (Aphrodite). The god Apollo later fused as one with Sol’s image though once they were two different deities. Sol’s son, Phaethon, by the ocean nymph Clymene, once tried to ride his father’s horse-drawn chariot, but lost control and had to be killed by Jupiter (Zeus) before the runaway Sun destroyed everything. 

VULCAN (Hephaestus) was once upon a time actually sighted by astronomers and as the closest planet to the Sun, it would of course be HOT, and thusly was named after the deity of fire and blacksmithing. Alas, Vulcan turned out to be as mythical as the deity it was named after.

MERCURY (Hermes) when observed from Earth goes around the Sun quick-smart. So, it was natural to name that body after the fleetest of the gods, the messenger god who flies through the skies on a winged helmet and winged sandals, Mercury. No great mystery there.

VENUS (Aphrodite) was, because of its celestial purity of face and brightness, a female goddess, and of course THE female goddess was the goddess of love. Alas, Venus the planet turned out to be more appropriate for the Christian ruler of the underworld than the goddess of romance. Venus is Hell personified and thus the reality turned out to be vastly different than the expectation, but the ancients couldn’t have known that back then. Venus (or Aphrodite) had an unusual birth, the offspring of Gaia, but fertilized by the blood/semen of Gaia’s son and lover, Uranus, when Uranus was castrated by Saturn (Cronus).

*Neith was the name given to the lone phantom satellite of Venus. I say phantom because, like Vulcan, it was a case of ‘now you see it, now you don’t’. It vanished from the sight of astronomers across the world, but prior to that some saw something. That’s water under the bridge now. The naming of the satellite Neith broke from tradition for Neith was the mysterious early Egyptian goddess of Sais. She was identified with war and hunting and the personification of the primordial waters of creation, though later on down the track she was associated with weaving, which is what Neith means. Wisdom was one of her strong points. She had no known male companion, so was known as a ‘Virgin Mother Goddess’.

GAEA (Gaia) otherwise known as Terra or Earth was one of the original deities ‘born’ out of the original state of the universe – Chaos. Given the relative lack of bed partners around then, she mated with any and all available males, including her asexually created children, like Uranus.

*Luna (Selene) was born of the god Hyperion and the goddess Theia, sister to Sol (Helios) and Aurora or Dawn (Eos). Luna crosses the night sky on a chariot pulled by two white horses. As with Sol and Apollo, the Roman goddess Diana (Artemis) is often associated with, and has melded with Luna (as the crescent-shaped Moon) as has the goddess of the underworld, Hecate (as the New Moon). Luna remains as the Full Moon in the night sky.

MARS (Ares) son of Jupiter (Zeus) and Juno (Hera or Mrs. Zeus) was the god of war, though if mythology be believed, he was rather a wimp of a god, got his butt kicked on several occasions and was rather disliked up on Olympus.

*Deimos: Ares (the god of war) had an extramarital fling with the goddess of love, Aphrodite (who was married to the god of fire, Hephaestus) and from this union produced two sons, one being Deimos, meaning ‘fear’.

*Phobos: That Ares and Aphrodite pairing also produced another son, Phobos, meaning ‘terror’. Both Deimos and Phobos often joined daddy on the battlefield. However, apart from that, they play no significant role in mythology.

ASTEROIDS: There are only four really main or large asteroids among the tens of thousands that exist, Ceres, Pallas, Vesta and Juno.

*Ceres (Demeter) was the goddess of agriculture, the harvest, and the one who controlled the seasons. Zeus had a bedroom fling with her that resulted in Persephone, who Zeus then promised to his brother Hades as his wife. Alas, Zeus didn’t inform either Persephone or Demeter about that decision, which had major repercussions down the track.

*Juno is Mrs. Jupiter, or in the Greek, the equivalent of Hera (Mrs. Zeus). In either case, Juno/Hera is the queen of all the gods and goddesses. She is perhaps noted most of all for her vindictiveness against some of the offspring produced by her husband’s extramarital relationships, most notably, Hercules.

*Pallas is named after Pallas Athena, an alternative name for the Greek goddess Athena. In another version Pallas was the daughter of Triton, who acted as foster parent to Athena. A friendly fight between the two goddesses went sour and Pallas was killed.  

*Vesta (Hestia) was the virgin goddess of the hearth and home or home fire, a real stay-at-home sort of deity and thus doesn’t feature much in mythological adventures and doings. In the Roman version Vesta was represented by a shrine with an eternal flame guarded by the Vestal Virgins who, as a condition of their employment and of remaining alive, had better remain pure, or else. The god of war, Mars, raped one, and from that involuntary union, sprang the twins Remus and Romulus, the latter the founder of Rome. 

To be continued…

Exobiology: Bibliography: 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 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 a few more samplings of some of the non-fictional monographs that have touched on some of the topics raised so far.

Further Readings: Intelligent Life on the Moon

Leonard, George H.; Somebody Else Is On the Moon; David McKay Company, Inc., New York; 1976: 

Wilson, Don; Our Mysterious Spaceship Moon; Dell, Publishing Co., Inc., New York; 1975: 

Wilson, Don; Secrets of Our Spaceship Moon; Sphere Books Limited, London; 1980:

Further Readings: Our Solar System

Brack, Andre & Clancy, Paul & Horneck, Gerda; Looking for Life, Searching the Solar System; Cambridge University Press, New York; 2005: 

Carle, Glenn C. & Huntington, Judith L. & Schwartz, Deborah E. (Editors); Exobiology in Solar System Exploration; NASA SP 512; U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.; 1992:

Horowitz, Norman H.; To Utopia and Back: The Search for Life in the Solar System; W.H. Freeman and Company, New York; 1986: 

Ponnamperuma, Cyril (Editor); Chemical Evolution of the Giant Planets; Academic Press, Inc., New York; 1976:

Further Readings: Mars

DiGregorio, Barry E. & Levin, Gilbert V. & Straat, Patricia Ann; Mars: The Living Planet; Frog, Ltd., Berkeley, California; 1997: 

Goldsmith, Donald; The Hunt for Life on Mars; Dutton, New York; 1997:

Sawyer, Kathy; The Rock from Mars: A Detective Story on Two Planets; Random House, New York; 2006:

Further Readings: Intelligent Life on Mars

Carlotto, Mark J.; The Martian Enigmas: A Closer Look; North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California; 1991: 

Hoagland, Richard C.; The Monuments of Mars: A City On the Edge of Forever; North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California; 1987:

Further Readings: Europa & Titan

Greenberg, Richard; Europa, the Ocean Moon: Search for an Alien Biosphere for Life on Jupiter’s Ocean Moon; Springer- Praxis Books, New York; 2005:

Greenberg, Richard; Unmasking Europa: The Search for Life on Jupiter’s Ocean Moon; Copernicus Books/Praxis Publishing Ltd, New York; 2008:

Lorenz, Ralph & Mitton, Jacqueline; Titan Unveiled: Saturn’s Mysterious Moon Explored; Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey; 2008:

Further Readings: The Rare Earth Hypothesis

Brownlee, Donald & Ward, Peter D.; Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe; Copernicus Books, New York; 2000:

Further Readings: Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Gould, Stephen Jay; Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale and the Nature of History; Vintage, London: 2000: 

Morris, Simon Conway; The Crucible of Creation; Oxford University Press, New York; 1998:

Morris, Simon Conway; Life’s Solution: Inevitable Humans In A Lonely Universe; Cambridge University Press, New York; 2003:

Seielstad, George A.; At the Heart of the Web: The Inevitable Genesis of Intelligent Life; Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, Boston; 1989:

Further Readings: SETI

Davies, Paul; The Eerie Silence: Are We Alone in the Universe?;

Allen Lane, London

; 2010:

Drake, Frank & Sobel, Dava; Is Anyone Out There? The Scientific Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence; Delacorte Press; New York; 1992: 

McConnell, Brian; Beyond Contact: A Guide to SETI and Communicating with Alien Civilizations; O’Reilly & Associates, Sebastopol, California; 2001:

McDonough, Thomas R.; The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence: Listening for Life in the Cosmos; John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York; 1987:

SETI Institute Science & Technology Working Group; SETI 2020: A Roadmap for the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence; SETI Press, Mountain View, California; 2002:

Shostak, Seth; Confessions of An Alien Hunter: A Scientist’s Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence; National Geographic, Washington, D.C.; 2009:

Further Readings: Exploration and Colonization of Interstellar Space

Gilster, Paul; Centauri Dreams: Imagining and Planning Interstellar Exploration; Copernicus Books, New York; 2004:

Macvey, John W.; Interstellar Travel: Past, Present, and Future; Stein and Day, New York; 1977:

Further Readings:  The Fermi Paradox

Hart, Michael H. & Zuckerman, Ben (Editors); Extraterrestrials: Where Are They?; Pergamon Press, N.Y.; 1982:

Hart, Michael H. & Zuckerman, Ben (Editors); Extraterrestrials: Where Are They? [2^nd edition]; Cambridge University Press, Cambridge; 1995:

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

Webb, Stephen; Where Is Everybody? Fifty Solutions to the Fermi Paradox and the Problem of Extraterrestrial Life; Copernicus Books, N.Y.; 2002:

Further Readings: Ancient Astronauts

Blumrich, Josef F.; The Spaceships of Ezekiel; Bantam Books, New York; 1974: 

Castle, Edgar W. & Thiering, Barry B. (Joint Editors); Some Trust in Chariots!!; Westbooks, Perth, W.A.; 1972:

Daniken, Erich von; Chariots of the Gods? Unsolved Mysteries of the Past; G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York; 1969:

Daniken, Erich von; Gods from Outer Space: Return to the Stars or Evidence for the Impossible; G.P. Putnam’s Sons, New York; 1971:

Daniken, Erich von; In Search of Ancient Gods: My Pictorial Evidence for the Impossible; Souvenir Press, London; 1974:

Downing, Barry H.; The Bible & Flying Saucers; Avon Books, New York; 1968:

Drake, W. Raymond; Gods and Spacemen in the Ancient East; Sphere Books, London; 1974:

Drake, W. Raymond; Gods and Spacemen in the Ancient West; Sphere Books, London; 1974:

Norman, Eric; Gods Demons and UFOs; Lancer Books, New York; 1970:

Story, Ronald; Guardians of the Universe?; New English Library, London; 1980: 

Story, Ronald; The Space-Gods Revealed: A Close Look at the Theories of Erich von Daniken; Harper & Row, New York; 1976: 

Temple, Robert K.G.; The Sirius Mystery; Sidgwick & Jackson, London; 1976:

Wilson, Clifford; Crash Go the Chariots; Lancer Books, New York; 1972:

Wilson, Clifford; The Chariots Still Crash; Signet, New York; 1975:

Wilson, Clifford; The War of the Chariots; S. John Bacon, Melbourne, Victoria; 1978:

Exobiology: Intelligent Life in the Solar System

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 perhaps we should start a bit closer to home and look to our own solar system. Apart from Planet Earth, we have no absolute proof positive to date that any simple life (i.e. – microbes), exists within the confines of our solar system. But what of intelligent life?

Over the years, there have been some speculations that our solar system plays host to advanced intelligent extraterrestrial beings.

The Moon (Luna): The Hollow and Inhabited Moon Theory: Once upon a time, not all that long ago in fact, there really wasn’t a satisfactory scientific explanation for the natural origin of our satellite, Luna. All the three major theories had fatal flaws. And thus, the possibility that the Moon wasn’t natural at all, but some sort of hollow world, perhaps a UFO base and colony ship, wasn’t all that implausible to some. However, some scientific genius came up with a fourth natural explanation that satisfied all the previous scientific stumbling blocks. Thus, using Ockham’s (or Occam’s) Razor as a guide, me-thinks the hollow Moon theory has proved to be a bit, well, hollow. Pity! However, if UFOs should prove to be space vehicles, the products of alien intelligence, then it logically follows that E.T. will have explored our Moon, maybe even have a base of operations there. That might account for part of the various Transient Lunar Phenomena (TLP) witnessed over many centuries.

The Moons of Mars: For a brief while there was some serious scientific speculation that the tiny twin Martian satellites, Deimos and Phobos, were, based on their orbital characteristics, hollow, and thus artificial. Well, close-up photography has put that to rest. It was the observations that were out of kilter, not the actual orbits of the Martian moons. 

The Face on Mars: An apparently gigantic ‘human’ face was photographed by the Viking Orbiting spacecraft. Alas, however wonderful this would have proved to have been, an obvious alien artefact, it really was just a mirage – a trick of light and shadow as shown by later photographs from other orbiting Mars spacecraft. It proved to be a case of wishful thinking, like the canals of Mars were, and a case of a mountain made unnecessarily out of a molehill.

The Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) hasn’t just focused on trying to detect artificial radio transmissions from E.T. There have been searches of the asteroid belt for obvious signs of astro-engineering (like aliens mining the asteroids for the resources they contain). No luck. There’s also been searches made of the Earth-Moon Lagrangian points – those areas of space where an object can ‘hover’ indefinitely in a fixed position relative to both the Earth and the Moon – sort of like being in geostationary orbit. Anyway, searches have been done at those locations for obvious alien relics or ships, but again, no dice.

I can’t quite leave this area without making reference to that way far out sub-genre of UFO buffs from the 1950s (their heyday) – the contactees. The contactees claimed to have had personal contact with and messages from angelic-like extraterrestrial beings, often called by the contactees our ‘space brothers’ who have come to Earth in their ‘flying saucers’. 

The contactees were often bucketed as total loonies back then (in the 50’s) by the mainstream, even mainstream people interested in extraterrestrial life and UFOs. That’s no less so today if someone is still foolish enough to mention them. But a question remains on the grounds of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ - and none of the contactees were ever convicted and imprisoned for outright fraud. But did the contactees (collectively) invent these angelic-like extraterrestrial beings with the intent of fraud; or to have some fun and hoax the public and pull the wool over their unsuspecting eyes; or perhaps they just, collectively, had some serious mental issues, say delusions of sorts. Or, perhaps the contactees were relating the truth as they thought they had experienced it, when perhaps the angelic-like extraterrestrial beings were being less than 100% honest with them.

In any event, the contactees spun the tale that these angelic-like ‘space brothers’ came from the other planets and bodies in our solar system (some we haven’t even discovered yet). Our Moon, Venus, Saturn, etc. were all home to these advanced extraterrestrials. The contactees rode in the ‘space brothers’ ‘flying saucers’ and visited their planetary homes, however preposterous that seemed back even then. Although then again, you have that angelic-like ancient Near Eastern goddess Inanna or Inana (Ishtar) identified with the celestial planet Venus, so who knows where the ‘gods’ have actually set up camp! Venus might be pure fire-and-brimstone hell to us, but then too we, using our technology, can survive in environments previously lethal to us – say under the sea or on the Antarctic icecap.

Just because there’s no obvious evidence of extraterrestrial intelligence in our solar system now doesn’t mean there wasn’t in the past, or of course they could be here now, hiding in plain sight – those pesky UFO events!

Exobiology: Life in the Solar System: Summary & Conclusions

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 perhaps we should start a bit closer to home and look to our own solar system. Apart from Planet Earth, we have no absolute proof positive to date that any other life, albeit relatively simple forms compared to terrestrial life forms such as ourselves and associated companion animals and plants, exists within the confines of our solar system. However, I conclude in this overall summary the odds are fairly high, almost certain in fact; those other, albeit relatively simple extraterrestrial life forms do exist in our immediate cosmic neighbourhood. 

Life is ultimately nothing more than an ongoing series of complex biochemical reactions. These sort of reactions tend to be optimal at warmer (quasi Earth-like) temperatures. Too cold and the necessary chemical reactions are too sluggish, if they proceed at all. Too hot, complex organic molecules rapidly break down. So, Titan (moon of Saturn) is probably way too chilly even though it has a thick atmosphere and lots of organic molecules on the surface, even organic liquids forming large lakes if not exactly oceans. The surface of Venus in contrast is way too hot, but it has a thick atmosphere that’s a lot more temperate at higher altitudes. Some real estate is both too hot and too cold at the same time – Mercury and Luna (our Moon) for example and lacking any real atmosphere and liquid water aren’t top of the pops for finding life, however simple.

Mars, long associated with intelligent extraterrestrial life, is still a near certainty for much housing far simpler extraterrestrial life forms, like microbes. There are many independent chains of observational evidence that support that conclusion. Proof positive however, still waits.

Europa (moon of Jupiter) has in all probability a liquid water ocean beneath a global ice cap. Water plus a geothermal/tidal energy heat source opens up a good plausibility for going ice fishing to our descendents several generations down the track. There are several other moons with ice cap surfaces covering possible liquid oceans that might rival Europa as an eventual fishing destination.

My favourite solar system locations for (probably) tough-as-nails microbial life, Mars apart, are the upper atmospheres of the Jovian (gas giant) planets (Jupiter and Saturn; maybe Uranus and Neptune). Their atmospheres are rich in organics and no doubt water vapour.  The gas giants, Uranus excepted, radiate more heat energy than they receive from the Sun. There will be regions in their upper atmospheres that have Earth-like temperatures; there will be a lot of atmospheric mixing (useful for bringing different chemicals together); and of course these planets will also have been seeded with organics and water from space via comets, meteors, cosmic dust, etc., if not in fact seeded directly with microbial life forms via the Panspermia hypothesis.

The problem in finding out for sure is going to revolve around sending appropriate instrumentation into those planetary atmospheres that will be able to detect actual life forms, as opposed to just measuring just purely physical parameters and chemical constituents. So, don’t expect definite answers anytime soon.  

Lastly, we can’t rule out comets and meteors from housing dormant extraterrestrial microbial life forms.

Exobiology: Life in the Outer Solar System: The Smaller Bodies

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 perhaps we should start a bit closer to home and look to our own outer solar system and some of the smaller abodes. Apart from Planet Earth, we have no absolute proof positive to date that any other life, albeit relatively simple forms compared to terrestrial life forms such as ourselves and associated companion animals and plants, exists within the confines of our solar system. However, the odds are fairly high, almost certain in fact; those other, extraterrestrial life forms do exist in our immediate cosmic neighbourhood. 

Europa (A Satellite of Jupiter): Europa is, apart from Mars, the current darling of the exobiology (astrobiology) set. There is evidence that Europa has a liquid water ocean underneath a thick ice cap that is kept from freezing solid by the flexing action imposed on the moon by its parent planet, Jupiter. If you have liquid water, an energy source, you therefore have possible life, or so goes the thinking.  I’m not quite as optimistic. The ice cap is thick enough so that any energy source available for life won’t be solar. The ocean will be in eternal darkness. That is however not a death blow as not all critters on Earth rely on solar energy. There could be hydrothermal vents, with associated living communities on Europa as there is on Earth. But, with the ice cap, there would be little in the way of resources added to the ocean from outside; that’s not the case on Earth. All chemicals that would sustain such life would have to be efficiently recycled. Life on Europa – possible, but it’s going to prove to be very difficult to explore that ocean, so I’m not expecting a definitive answer any time real soon.

However, there remains the possibility that materials contained within that hypothetical ocean may, due to tidal stresses, may be squeezed through cracks in the ice and find their way to rest on the surface. It’s therefore possible that a robotic craft that lands on the icy surface might detect organics and/or fossil or frozen solid microbes or even dead multicellular life forms resting on the surface.

[Note: To avoid unnecessary repeats, as a general rule of thumb, any satellite around Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus or Neptune that has a substantial part of it’s crust made up of ice, and is subject to extreme tidal heating by it’s parent planetary body (i.e. – you get a liquid ocean underneath a thin covering of ice), you have the potential for, as in the case of Europa, a habitable water-rich environment.]

Titan (A Satellite of Saturn): The satellite of Saturn, Titan, is one of the largest moons in the solar system, and in fact, if it existed all by its lonesome, could be considered a planet in its own right. Titan has, fairly unique among satellites, a dense atmosphere. It’s denser in fact than our own atmosphere. It also has the right sorts of chemicals that we identify as having a strong connection with organic and biochemistry. Were Titan the same distance from the Sun that Earth is, well, you could have a real twin of Earth, unlike our false twin, Venus.

Unfortunately, Titan is way, way, way – far away – from the solar energy source that makes Earth such a relative paradise. Thus, Titan is Earth, but an Earth in slow motion because Titan is so cold compared to Earth. If you think of Earth as liquid water at the equator, Titan is molasses at the poles!

Comets, Asteroids/Planetoids, Meteors: These relative tiny bodies can’t really qualify as habitable abodes to life, except, there’s evidence that not only can some of the above be rich in the sorts of chemicals associated with life (water, carbon compounds and organic chemistry), they could indeed be environments that could house dormant life forms or fossil life forms of a unicellular kind. Meteorites which have been gathered up and analysed on Earth (like ALH 84001) have yielded if not fossilised bacteria, then at least enough chemical evidence to suggest that they could have had a close connection with contributions towards an origin of life event.

Exobiology: Life in the Outer Solar System: The Gas Giants and Pluto

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 perhaps we should start a bit closer to home and look to our own outer solar system, starting with the gas giants (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune) and Pluto. Apart from Planet Earth, we have no absolute proof positive to date that any other life, albeit relatively simple forms compared to terrestrial life forms such as ourselves and associated companion animals and plants, exists within the confines of our solar system. However, the odds are fairly high, almost certain in fact; those other, extraterrestrial life forms do exist in our immediate cosmic neighbourhood. 

Taking each of the four gas giant abodes (the Jovian planets) in the outer solar system followed by Pluto in turn…

Jupiter (The Giant Planet): Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system, but composed mainly of gas. In fact, Jupiter has been insulted by being compared to our Sun, but a failed Sun. If Jupiter had been a fair few masses larger, it would have ignited in a ball of thermonuclear fusion and become a second stellar object in our solar system, turning it into a binary star system. Jupiter however is still solar enough such that it emits more energy than it receives from the Sun. Jupiter, because of the intense gravity, compresses its own stuff, and compression produces heat. Important point number one: Jupiter has its own internal energy source.

Important points two, three and four: Secondly, Jupiter’s atmosphere is composed of the right sorts of chemicals that one identifies with origin of life events – hydrogen, methane, ammonia, water vapour, etc. Thirdly, Jupiter’s atmosphere is turbulent such that there is a lot of mixing of those elements and compounds. Fourthly, the atmospheric bands of Jupiter are highly coloured, an indication that there’s lots of complex chemistry including organic chemistry going on within.   

The upshot of all of this is that it is not implausible that within the upper reaches of Jupiter’s atmosphere, as per the case of Venus, simple life forms couldn’t exist, survive and thrive. You have the chemistry – you have the energy. And maybe Carl Sagan was right and that something more complex than just a unicellular ecosystem could exist in Jupiter’s atmosphere. But it would have to be an atmospheric ecology.

Saturn (The Ringed Planet): Saturn is a quasi twin of Jupiter. Although slightly smaller and farther away from the Sun than Jupiter, the same general arguments that apply to Jupiter apply to Saturn. That is to say, Saturn has the right sorts of chemistry – and an internal energy supply. It’s however slightly less dense than the other gas giants, such that if you could find an ocean big enough, Saturn would float! That however has no bearing on the issue of finding an atmosphere-based ecosystem there.

Uranus: Uranus is a poor cousin compared to the likes of Jupiter and Saturn. It’s mainly a gas planet, albeit way smaller, but so far out from where it’s all happening that it isn’t too likely that even simple life could flourish in the atmospheric depths, although the chemistry isn’t dissimilar to that of the closer-in Jovian planets of Jupiter and Saturn.

Neptune: The same sorts of arguments apply in general to Neptune as to Uranus, with one slight exception. Although farther out, Neptune, like Jupiter and Saturn, radiates out excess energy. It’s solar independent, at least as far as any life forms might describe their environment and energy supply.

Pluto: The planetoid Pluto was recently officially demoted from strict planetary status, and is no longer acceptable to refer to it as the ninth planet. However, when I was growing up, it was the ninth planet, and so I say buggers to astronomical officialdom. That rant aside, Pluto is hardly top rock for vacation seekers. It’s cold. I mean it’s really cold. It makes Antarctica seem absolutely tropical in comparison. I mean polar bears would freeze to death on Pluto, not that there’s anything reasonably resembling an atmosphere as we know it for them to breathe. Again, Pluto is too cold to allow for the high temperature chemistry we associate with life-as-we-know-it. If you’re looking for life in our solar system, Pluto wouldn’t be your first port of call. 

Exobiology: Life In The Inner Solar System: Mars

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 also needs to look for life within our own solar system, apart from Earth of course. Take Mars, fourth rock from the Sun.  There is (microbial) life on Mars. Microbial life on the Red Planet Mars is just about a sure fire a thing as death and taxes, albeit it’s probably spread very thinly.

Firstly, the two Viking landers, equipped with three separate life detection experimental techniques, all scored positive hits. It was only because the detection of organic molecules proved negative that it was thought prudent to look at exotic inorganic soil chemistry as an alternative explanation for the positive life detection results. There are those scientists involved with those Viking experiments who still maintain that microbial life was detected on Mars in 1976. Certainly it’s not 100% proof, but it’s certainly a pro-life run on the scoreboard.

Secondly, there is the evidence from the Martian meteorite found in the Antarctic (ALH 84001). Recall there was four separate and independent reasons for coming to the conclusion that the meteorite contained fossil microbial life forms from Mars. While each apart could have a non-biological explanation, the four together were highly suggestive of microbial life on Mars. Make that two runs on the scoreboard.

Thirdly, spacecraft orbiting Mars have detected methane in the Martian atmosphere. Methane is chemically reactive, and would disappear in short time frames were it not replenished by some source. A major source of methane on Earth is from microorganisms. While there are non-living sources of methane (volcanic activity), lack of such activity on Mars suggests that one chalk up yet another run on the board for life.

Fourthly, there’s no longer any question about Mars once having had extensive water. Spirit and Opportunity have settled that chestnut, and that’s quite apart from the visual evidence of what look like water channels, etc. on the Martian surface. Where’s there water, there’s the probability of life.

Lastly, it’s obvious that Earth and Mars would have exchanged materials via rocks being impacted off one planet and arriving on the other (so called ‘ballistic panspermia’). Since microbial life exists on Earth, some of it would have been transported throughout geological history to Mars. It’s quite possible that Mars seeded Earth as well, maybe even initially. Perhaps we are the Martians!  And of course, it’s probable that both Mars and Earth were seeded from another outside source. That, IMHO, settles that.

Further readings:

DiGregorio, Barry E. & Levin, Gilbert V. & Straat, Patricia Ann; Mars: The Living Planet; Frog, Ltd., Berkeley, California; 1997: 

Goldsmith, Donald; The Hunt for Life on Mars; Dutton, New York; 1997:

Sawyer, Kathy; The Rock from Mars: A Detective Story on Two Planets; Random House, New York; 2006:

Exobiology: Life In The Inner Solar System

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 perhaps we should start a bit closer to home and our own inner solar system – Mercury, Venus, Earth, the Moon and Mars. Apart from Planet Earth, we have no absolute proof positive to date that any other life, albeit relatively simple forms compared to terrestrial life forms such as ourselves and associated companion animals and plants, exists within the confines of our solar system. However, the odds are fairly high, almost certain in fact; those other, extraterrestrial life forms do exist in our immediate cosmic neighbourhood. 

Humans and our associated kin on the third rock out from the Sun are lords of life forms in the solar system. But, we’re not unique lords, just lords. Other abodes in the inner solar system, most probably Mars, are possible even probable habitable abodes to simple microbial life forms; perhaps something slightly above and beyond that.

But first a pat on the back for those terrestrial microbes; all those germs, bacteria, unicellular critters and even viruses (though viruses, depending on your perception of their actually being alive as we normally define ‘alive’ might exclude them from this discussion). They are tough, I mean they boldly go, survive, and even thrive where even angels fear to tread, far less humans.

On Earth, microbes rule, OK? The biomass of all those bacteria, etc. put together easily equals the biomass of every other multicellular plant and animal added together. One could easily argue that microbes, not humans, are the jewels in God’s crown – He made so many of them, and talk about being fruitful and multiplying. The number and mass of micro-organisms are many orders of magnitude greater than the numbers and collective mass of humanity. If fact, there are millions of microbes living inside you – most beneficial. In fact, it could also be argued that you are nothing more than an elaborate colony of billions of unicellular organisms – your individual cells that make you, you..

Microbes have another decided advantage over more complex life forms, like plants. Solar energy (photosynthesis) isn’t the only kind of energy available to organisms. Even on Earth there are lots of organisms, mainly unicellular ones, that use chemosynthesis as the means by which they directly derive their energy needs, directly as in from the chemicals in their environment. Today we know a great deal about chemosynthesis and the organisms that can produce organics from inorganic substances and derive energy from the process.

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. And while we don’t get our energy directly via photosynthesis, we’re still dependent on solar energy since we eat the plants or the animals that eat the plants.

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 kilometres 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. Also from the marine environment, the entire ecological communities’ part and parcel of hydrothermal vent systems is ultimately based on chemosynthesis.

From terrestrial environments to those of outer space and our solar system is but perhaps a small step for microbes. Even back in those high school days however I seem to recall speculation by no less a scientist than the late Carl Sagan 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 mould, but good old Mother Earth herself as it hydrothermal vent ecosystems among many others now known. So gospel ain’t gospel any longer!

Now taking each abode in turn…

Mercury: The planet Mercury, closest planet to our Sun, unfortunately lacks any atmosphere to speak of, and broils on the side facing the Sun and freezes on the side facing away – much like our Moon, and is in fact is similarly heavily cratered. There’s no liquid water on the surface, and overall, like our Moon, seems totally inhospitable. Bacteria might be able to exist in a dormant sort of way in 100% sheltered niches, but actively survive and thrive they do not.

Venus: The planet Venus had long been thought of as Earth’s twin sister. It’s the second planet out from the Sun, and has a size and density very close to terrestrial values. It also has an atmosphere. Being closer to the Sun than Earth, Venus was, pre-space age, thought to be warm and moist, a totally tropical environment of lush vegetation where maybe dinosaur-like creatures or dragons roamed and chased scantly clad maidens! Alas, once space probes crossed paths with, and landed on, Venus, such dreams of a tropical paradise was dashed. Well its tropical alright, if ‘tropical’ means a surface temperature of 900 degrees Fahrenheit.  But the atmosphere, mainly carbon dioxide – a greenhouse gas - is so thick and dense that the atmospheric pressure is way massive relative to Earth’s. So, Venus turned out to be more akin to Hell than a tropical Heaven. No life here!

But wait, perhaps such a judgment is premature. What happens here on Earth as you climb up a high mountain? Well, the temperature drops and the air gets more rarefied - and so too on Venus. In the upper atmosphere, the temperature and pressure of Venus drops to more terrestrial surface conditions. There can’t be surface life-as-we-know-it on that planet, but what about simple, say microbial life existing in the upper atmosphere?

The question therefore is, if life couldn’t have arose on the surface of Venus because it is just too damn hot (and no water), where hence did the atmospheric life (microbial most likely) come from? Well, the surface of Venus, way back when, may have been far more hospitable than it is now. However, there’s also Panspermia – life forms adrift in space that eventually impact other worlds. The upper atmosphere of Venus may have been seeded with microbial life forms at some time in the past via such a mechanism, the same mechanism that may have kick-started life on the early Earth, and perhaps seeded other planetary abodes in our solar system. 

Earth (Terra): Home! Nothing further need be said.

The Moon (Luna): Like Mercury, our Moon is airless and subject to extremes in temperature depending on whether the Moon is facing towards or away from the Sun. While the first couple of crews of Apollo Moon landing astronauts were quarantined after their missions, just in case, no extraterrestrial life forms of any kind were ever discovered. But that’s not quite the end of the story. The Apollo 12 astronauts brought back with them a few bits and pieces of the unmanned Lunar Surveyor that had landed about three years previously. Terrestrial bacteria within those bits and pieces were found to still be viable after exposure to the lunar vacuum, intense radiation exposure and temperature extremes. While hardly indigenous Lunar life forms, they give credibility (as if any were needed) that microbes are composed of the right stuff to survive the rigours of outer space.