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Worlds With Two Suns May Sport Black Plants
sciencehabit writes "If Tatooine were real, it would probably be filled with black plants and trees. A new study finds that, to maximize energy absorption for photosynthesis, the flora on worlds that orbit two suns may have evolved to use one or more types of light-absorbing pigments that absorb across a broad range of wavelengths, which would tend to make the plant appear black or gray. Although the idea that planets that could host such life may sound far-fetched, such orbs may not be so rare: The team's computer simulations indicate that Earth-like planets can exist in several types of stable orbits in multistar systems. More than one-fourth of the sunlike stars in our galaxy and about half of the long-lived but dim, cool stars called red dwarfs are found in solar systems containing two or more stars, the researchers note."
For a moment I thought the title was: "Worlds With Two Suns May Sport Black Pants"
Why black pants? Why not yoga pants?
You mean like the plants on Gilligan's Island ?
Anyone else read this as "Worlds With Two Suns May Sport Black Pants?"
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What rays would correspond to each color? i assume yellow = green. it would follow that a red dwarf might have color different plants than our sun. This would go for all stars of different type correct ?
If you have over-abundance of light, why would you need extra absorption? That's needed when you have LESS light than the earthly average. Also, this implies the planet's life evolved exactly like Earth's for billions of years, which is impossible.
In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.
keep in mind that results from simulation is accurate only if the models used are valid and complete.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
If there are two suns, wouldn't the plants be white?
Black would result in too much sun absorption...
I could see black plants in an area with an extremely low amount of sunlight.
why's it always got to be about race with you guys? can't we just get along?
Which character encoding includes â½ Â ?
The teamâ½ Â s computer simulations indicate that
UNICODE FAIL.
I imagine it would also mean that any life that evolved there would evolve an eye that would be capable of seeing a broader spectrum of light as well, though, so the plants wouldn't look black to them.
Still, it's cool; worlds with black & grey plants. Very Star Trek.
The problem is that most of the stable orbits for a planet in a binary system result in very hot temperatures for part of it's orbit and freezing for the rest of the orbit.
1: planet orbits one of the two suns and is between two suns for part of orbit.
2: planet orbits both suns in a highly elliptical orbit taking it in and out of the 'goldilocks' zone where liquid water can exisit.
3: planet orbits both suns in a figure 8 orbit with similar results to #2
If BOTH suns are small and close together the planet could orbit both at a 'just right' distance to allow liquid water, but might be too close to the suns and be rotation locked with days and nights 1/2 a year long (like our moon).
Wah?
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Of course any advanced organisms that develop on the planet would have their "optical" spectrum shifted toward the infrared, centered about the peak of the emission spectrum of the "black" leaves, making them appear ... green.
There's no mention of how this would affect animal life. Skin tones and fur/feather coloring would be lighter to reflect more of the light, right?
"God does not play Minecraft with the world." - Albert Einstein
the idea that planets that could host such life may sound far-fetched
If life is at all common then most of it will be in binary systems, because binaries are the most common system type.
Most life will probably be found on moons as well, because there are a lot more moons than planets.
The problem is that most of the stable orbits for a planet in a binary system result in very hot temperatures for part of it's orbit and freezing for the rest of the orbit.
So a lot like Canada then?
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Did anyone else read the headline as "Worlds With Two Suns May Sport Black Pants"?
Dressy, sure. But sporty? A truly alien world that would be...
The universe is not only stranger than we imagine,
it is stranger than we can imagine - Arthur C. Clarke
Why does anyone assume that life on another world
would include something we would categorize as a plant?
more cowbell
On a planet far out in the galaxy there reads a headline... "Worlds With One Sun May Sport Black Plants". Because, those plants can pretty much occur anywhere. This is like saying that a planet with two suns might have extra big clouds. Sure, the sun(s) have an impact, but its not the sole reason. Especially in such complex things as life (or weather patterns).
They might also be blue, or orange, or maybe frictionless black on black. Who actually thinks we have enough data to populate a computer model to make this wild conjecture? For Pete's sake, we can't even model Earth well enough to predict vague global temperature trends, how in the world can we have a valid model of an theoretical ecosystem that might or might not exist somewhere in the universe, which might or might not have life systems that use the energy from starlight to feed chemical reactions to store and use energy???? Can we please start using dewey decimal to categorize these stories so we know which ones are fiction without bothering to read TFA?
"Proximity to wonder has blunted our perception and appreciation of it" --Tim Hartnell in 'Exploring ARTIFICIAL INTELLI
Is it my imagination, or is the summary one sentence short of being the entire text of the article?
I want to see their birth certificates!
If the plants have a broad spectrum of light to draw from, they can draw from any portion of the spectrum and survive.
But plants on Earth aren't green because of the spectrum they have to draw from, which anyone with a prism can show is the full spectrum of colors we can see.
They are green because that's what color leaves full of chlorophyll are, and chlorophyll is photosynthetic, and not much else is.
If chlorophyll was magenta, guess what.
In other words: it's not that simple.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
Give Lucas yet another reason to alter the original trilogy. Stoppit already!
Yes. It's unknown if life there will politely mock Americans, but given the dual nature of their system, a passive-aggressive attitude seems likely.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
It helps if the two stars are like Pluto distance apart.
Even Jupiter distance apart is "not entirely awful". That would make life on Mars very exciting, for example.
But yeah if Venus and Mars were both Sol sized stars we'd be pretty much screwed, yeah.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Yes, as explained by Stephen Hawking in "The Grand Design". Great book, if anyone hasn't read it yet, do so.
Those plants are kept alive by the moisture farming industry.
As a simple reminder, evolution is what powers change, not divine creation. Just because it would be beneficial, doesn't mean it happens, just like plants on Earth don't maximize their photosynthesis potential, either. Theoretically, any colour we can see could be absorbed, making plants under our sun black to our eyes under ordinary sunlight.
It hasn't happened.
A new study finds that, to maximize energy absorption for photosynthesis, the flora on worlds that orbit two suns may have evolved to use one or more types of light-absorbing pigments that absorb across a broad range of wavelengths, which would tend to make the plant appear black or gray.
If that is true, why don't we have black plants here? If you had multiple types of light absorbing pigments in a plant here, that plant would capture more energy from the sun and be able to out compete other types of plants. It would stay well fed in all seasons and would be able to use that extra captured energy to make seeds and reproduce year round, not just once or twice a year like other plants.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
If we define a "plant" as a staionary living organism that captures energy through some form of photosynthesis then it is safe to assume that plants are common.
Or another question, why don't we photosynthesize in our skin? The answer is simple, light does not have enough energy to support movement.
Think about it, it takes a carrot 3-6 months to grow. You eat it and burn through it in 2 hours over walking.
It would be extremely difficult to find a stable orbit for a planet in such a system. It would require not only that but that the goldilocks zone always overlap the entire planet at all times within the system's cycle. The evidence from our own solar system also suggests that the necessary criteria for life rarely arise from what could be called "simple" planet formation. Venus and Mars formed by simple accretion, both are in the goldilocks zone but neither has the necessary composition to sustain life. Earth is an amalgam of two planetoids, such that the density of the planet is abnormally high and the composition abnormally mixed. A lot of lighter elements got blasted off, some congealing into the moon.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Why would a plant, a leafy plant, want to turn black and live on Tatooine, with a bunch of 3-foot-tall Jawas? That does not make sense!
But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this post?
Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this post! It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm a commenter on a computer geek chat board, and I'm talkin' about black plants! Does that make sense?
Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense!
If plants aren't green on Tatooine, you must acquit!
The defense rests.
Editor is missing the point that Tatooine didn't have any plants or trees at all.
So, there was a photosynthetic war over green and purple?
Maybe that explains a lot about the Drazi onboard Babylon 5.
What's your point?
Do you think that the planet freezing solid for 10 years then coming to a point where there's a year long summer would mean life were impossible? I'd argue that it would simply lead to a very interesting sort of life. If it has a large moon to keep the core molten life could stay bellow the permafrost until the spring. It's be a very interesting planet indeed.
Vetoed!
James Lovelock's Daisyworld demonstrates what will happen in simple terms.
If the input of light is "ideal", there will be an equal number of light-absorbing and light-reflecting surfaces, as increasing the number of plants reflecting light will cool the planet below the light-reflecing plant's ideal temperature and vice versa.
If the light of the planet is high, then the number of light-reflecting surfaces must increase in order for the ecosystem to be stable. Indeed, negative feedback is the only way to MAKE it stable.
Thus, if there is way too much light (but not so much that life cannot survive), the number of absorbing surfaces will fall close to zero andthe number of reflecting surfaces will increase to whatever the surface can support.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Evolution causes mother nature to be very efficient in her selection of characteristics. It might just be that green is useful to plants because it is the right wavelength for efficient photosynthesis with the sun's light. It might be green because it's much easier for plants to make green chloroplasts than other colors or because green imparts enough energy without overheating the leaf structure or its easier for plants to repair green proteins than other colors. If you read up on it a bit, you find out that green does not really maximize energy production, but it's apparently optimal for most plants. However, there's plenty of earth plants that aren't green! Surprisingly there's few black plants. We think too often about optimizing a single parameter. Usually that parameter is short term cash flow. The natural world is a more-or-less true form of capitalism and it's brutal but it shows us that short-term gain isn't the only thing worth maximizing and in nature there's no way to externalize costs for the long-term. Those that do, don't survive.
Plants could be one color when one sun was up, then turn a lighter color as both suns were illuminating the area they're in. Then they wouldn't need to evolve, they could just maintain a dynamic equilibrium. So these planets would just be overrun with these weird plants, they'd never evolve televangelists to tell them that they didn't evolve from apes.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
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Assuming the energy per square meter falling on the planet is nearly the same as earth.
Maybe it is so high that creatures have to move at peak times to avoid getting fried.
Or perhaps no light reaches the surface.
Assuming photosynthesis developed and had nearly the same efficiency as terrestrial plants.
The currently accepted theory is that photosynthesis developed some time after the origin
of life on earth. If you accept that, then there was a period when life existed here with
no plants.
Assuming some other form of energy does not dominate the environment. Perhaps deep
water sulfur vents are the dominant source of energy.
My guess is that when we first encounter life on another world, we won't even recognize
it as such. My guess is that there is life on Mars, we've just missed it because we
concentrated our searches for something that looks like a common terrestrial form.
And there is evidence to support that guess.
more cowbell
Those plants would be seriously goth.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Planets around two suns probably would be lifeless in terms of life as we know it.
I personally lack the arrogance to assume that life in every planet will be the same as life on our planet.
Tatooine, is a desert planet. Lots of sand no trees or plants. At least that's what I've seen of it.
Scientific American had an article on this a few years ago. I kept misreading the title, imagining aliens wearing all manner of loud plaids and stripes.
My other car is a 1984 Nark Avenger.
But then if there were two suns, it would also affect our eyes, hence re-defining the color black and green.
It depends on how much light you're getting. E.g., since the specifically mentions dwarf stars, those actually radiate a lot less energy than the Sun.
Plus, generally, don't think having twice the Earth's energy input (which seem to be the underlying assumption in all the "why black" posts), because then you also wouldn't have liquid water and thus life. Messrs Stefan and Boltzmann say that radiated energy flus is proportional to the 4'th power of absolute temperature, and basically you achieve equilibrium when what you get equals what you radiate. So to make a long story short, if you actually got twice the energy we get from the sun, all things being equal, you'd also have 20% higher temperature.
It sounds not bad, but it's actually in Kelvin, so it means approx 60 Kelvin (or Celsius) more. I.e., between the two tropics, it would actually exceed the boiling temperature of water.
Which still doesn't sound so bad, until you remember that that water vapour is a greenhouse gas. A sauna atmosphere like that can raise temperature some more and turn it into Venus.
So necessarily, seen seen from the planet each of the two suns would have to be dimmer than our sun.
But anyway, that's the short version: don't think of the problem as "how do you deal with twice the light", but basically "how do you deal with roughly the same amount of light, only with a much weirder spectrum distribution."
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Plants don't "maximize energy absorption for photosynthesis" on Earth so why leap to the assumption that they would elsewhere. In fact Green is just about the worst color (lets ignore white) they could use on Earth. And retinal exists and is much better than chlorophyll in terms of using the "right" part of the spectrum to get more energy from sunlight (though I think it's then less efficient at harnassing it).
And of course absorbing too much energy can be a bad thing, heat is an unavoidable product (the atronomers should know that at least, thermodnamics is pretty important to their field...).
Evolution does not produce perfection, it creeps toward local maximas in the fitness space - OK now the biologists can call me stupid :)
A new study finds that, to maximize energy absorption for photosynthesis, the flora on worlds that orbit two suns may have evolved to use one or more types of light-absorbing pigments that absorb across a broad range of wavelengths, which would tend to make the plant appear black or gray
Dear summarizer: please rtfa. There was no "new study". This was just some people hypothesizing and reasoning. And then they did a computer simulation which had nothing to do with the color of the plants, but rather, a feasibility test to see if plant-like things could even grow in such conditions.
The team’s computer simulations indicate that Earth-like planets can exist in several types of stable orbits in multistar systems (inset).
The summary makes it sound like we sent a probe to plant-inhabited planets or something. =P
I think you meant plants of colour.
Is one of those stable orbits a stationary position between to stars that circle each other, with poles that are deserts and an equator of icy mountains? Because I wonder what Rabbibunny stew tastes like.
Regardless of number of stars the plants pay a tradeoff in energy gathering vs cost of gathering. Plants that are better will displace those that aren't (evolution). Plants on earth have been evolving for a long time, therefore their solutions are likely optimized (for that environment). I therefore expect alien worlds will have green plants, insects, birds and fish.
Hence leaves on earth plants are mostly green. The green yellow wavelengths from our sun are the most powerful, earthy chlorophyll wants infra-red so the leaf bounces the green (and yellow) away.
Incidentally this dovetails quite nicely with the question: why are there no green stars (answer - there are, but to us they look white).
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Wasn't this in Scientific American last year?
They want their Daisyworld BioSphere Computer Model back. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisyworld)
Daisyworld is James Lovelock's computer model from his 1983 paper to simulate a world covered with both white and black daisies and how their numbers wax and wane to achieve a balance.
Not without some bizarre biological (and physical) changes.
First, the plant would need multiple types of molecules with absorption peaks that would combine to cover the entire PAR range.
Second, the plant would need a way of venting off all the heat so much energy absorption would generate. It would essentially have to become a heat sink.
I deal with plants and light pretty much every waking minute. These little 'guesses' by these scientists are WAY, WAY off.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"The green yellow wavelengths from our sun are the most powerful"
Not really. Blue is more powerful. UV even stronger.
"Earthy chlorophyll wants infra-red so the leaf bounces the green (and yellow) away."
Carotene has some absorption in yellow and passes this on to chlorophyll for energy, so this statement is incorrect as well. Also, chlorophyll is more efficient at utilizing blue light. The times chlorophyll want IR is after the Pr reaction where exposure to deep red triggers it to switch to Pfr and prefer infra-red for the next photon, however there's a similar reaction between deep blue and UVA so IR and red might not even be required (I've grown cannabis under pure blue light with zero ill effect upon the plant from yield to quality, so at least some plants don't require it as long as you stimulate the phytochemical processes in sufficient quantity.)
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"Hey, Stephen Jay Gould, you there? Yeah, they're talking evolution on Slashdot. They seem to think organisms always adapt perfectly to their environments. Heh, yeah, I know, right? Okay, I'll tell 'em you said that."
-- Hen's Teeth and Horses' Toes.
Organisms are always constrained in their evolution by the limits of their embryonic development, their biochemical systems, and by the fundamental laws of physics and chemistry. Plants evolving in a binary system with a broader spectrum than sunlight won't necessarily evolve a broad spectrum system of photosynthetic absorbers, and thus look "black". It can only happen if there exist possible transition metal complexes with the right absorption spectrum, if those complexes can be manufactured by the cell's chemical machinery, if those photo-active molecules can be linked into an existing metabolic pathway, if if if.
Hell, existing Earth plants don't even make very efficient use of the Sun's spectrum. Plants are green because they fail to absorb green light. Yellow is also poorly absorbed. But these are right at the peak of the solar spectrum! Why are plants letting all this good energy be wasted? Because despite billions of years of evolution, they haven't "figured out" a way to take advantage of it. Why should we expect different anywhere else?
I'm not an astrophysicist, but I can't really see how cases 1 and 3 could result in a stable orbit. It seems to me like both of those would result in a collision with one of the stars sooner rather than later. The only stable orbit I can see is for the planet to be much further from the stars than the distance between the stars. I assume that would also mean too cold unless the stars are very bright, in which case most of the light would be in the ultraviolet range, which has its own set of problems.
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
I don't know about that, but I know worlds with two Dells typically sport a lot of downtime.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
The problem is that most of the stable orbits for a planet in a binary system result in very hot temperatures for part of it's orbit and freezing for the rest of the orbit.
So a lot like Canada then?
When does Canada have very hot weather.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I seem to recall that Norfolk's weeping roses wheren't black either.
I really like this subject. Could you tell me more I would love to explore
Women Lingerie
Isn't photosynthesis already sub-optimal because a more optimal set of chemical reactions would release too much heat, causing increased transpiration for the plant? Scarcity of water is often more of a challenge than scarcity of light. Wouldn't black make them too hot?
You know what was so special about Solaris? It was a planet in a dual sun system => unstable orbit => conditions too hard for any imaginable form of life.
Solaris (a "living planet") solved the problem by artificially keeping its orbit stable.
I'm not so sure. Consider a system like Alpha Centauri, which is technically a trinary system (two sunlike stars and a red dwarf). The red dwarf is irrelevant as it orbits the primary pair at a great distance. The sunlike pair orbit each other at about 50 AU, and the habitable zone for each of them would be around 1 AU, which should be a stable near-circular orbit. At 49AU or 51AU distances, the heat contribution from the other primary star would be negligible.
--- The key to knowledge is not to rely on people to teach you it ---
Plants are perhaps (mostly) green because that became the dominant metaphor, but it isn't an absolute
(points at Trilobites which are my favorite - almost survived forever - defunct organisms)
(and for the dark reactions - C4 seems to be more efficient, and a recent evolution, unless my dusty knowledge is faulty - probably is...
I doubt that we can grok the games that the always deliciously hacky natural world can throw up...
Andy
It said planets with two suns, not planets that orbit two suns. One sun might be smaller than another and actually orbit the bigger sun. The planet may just orbit the bigger sun too. The second sun would be so far away it would look like a very close star.
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
The problem is that most of the stable orbits for a planet in a binary system result in very hot temperatures for part of it's orbit and freezing for the rest of the orbit.
So a lot like Canada then?
When does Canada have very hot weather.
Summer, last year we had it on a Tuesday if I recall.
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
Plants only use about 1% of the energy in sunlight.
Most plants, the problem is CO2 availability, water, and heat.
Plants in a greenhouse can absorb ALL of the CO2 in a few minutes. One of the reasons that greenhouses are expensive to run is replacing and heating all that air. And you can get signficantly higher production by adding CO2 to the air.
Photosynthesis slows down as the temperature goes up. Reason: Evaporation picks up, and the plants close the stomata to reduce water loss.
The energy cycle to convert light into sugar is complex. Not all frequencies can be used effectively. Plants are green because that's the peak of the frequencies it doesn't use.
I'll point out that an aerial view of the boreal forest is close to black. While an individual spruce needle is green, the light that misses a needle has to bounce too many times to return to the sky. So in terms of keeping warm, spruce trees are doing a pretty good job. You'll note that spruce are not common at low latitudes.
Oh, and the purple and dark red leaved ornamental trees: In most of these, the leaf is overproducing purple and red pigments in excess, masking the chlorophyll. It is a disadvantage to them, making them less efficient at photosynthesis. These plants tend to grow more slowly, and be more disease prone, due to the shorter energy supply.
Third Career: Tree Farmer Second Career: Computer Geek First Career: Teacher, Outdoor Instructor, Photographer.
The Color of Plants on Other Worlds
April 2008, Scientific American Magazine
by Nancy Y. Kiang
If it isn't easy being green on Earth, where chlorophyll is well tuned to absorb most of the energy in our sun's yellow light, imagine the difficulties elsewhere in the galaxy. Plants growing on worlds around cooler, brighter or more tempestuous stars would need to rely on red, blue or even black pigments to survive. That insight offers astronomers new clues about what to look for in their search for extraterrestrial life
...they're scorched?
Allow me to restate - the ~520nm wavelength light coming from the sun has the greatest amplitude (i.e. is brightest) - which is what I meant by "more powerful."
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Oh and PS - the majority of green wavelength light is being reflected, not absorbed, by the leaf - hence the leaf looks green. No doubt some of that green light is being absorbed, but most is not.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
>> I've grown cannabis under pure blue light...
Now I understand your bizarre post.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.