Life on Saturn???

Question

If a creature were to live on the planet saturn what would it be like??? Give explanations ( use your imagination ) on why traits would be required. i.e. Food? Breathing? flying? etc

Answer 1

If (and this is a HUGE if) life could exist on Saturn, the beings would have to have extremely strong wings to stay in the air 24/7 since Saturn is all gas above its core. They would have to see in infrared (or perhaps be sensitive to radio waves) to see through the thick clouds. Of course they wouldn't breathe oxygen like us, they'd breathe hydrogen or helium. I also can't imagine they'd be carbon-based. There's no possibility of plant life on Saturn, so the creatures can't be plant or meat eaters (to have meat eaters you have to have plant eaters or life wouldn't even exist) so I would think they don't need to eat, they get energy and nutrition some other way.

Guys, she's not asking if life exists on Saturn, we all know it doesn't, so she's not interested in a long, plagiarized explanation of why life wouldn't exist there. She wants you to use your imagination and be creative.

Answer 2

creatures (animals) wouldn't really be able to live on saturn because of the general atmosphere on the planet.

1) it's a gas planet, so any creature living there would have to be able to fly and remain airborne for all purposes (the closest we have on earth is the swift)

2) it's very windy. storms on saturn reach speeds of upto 1000 miles per hour and can occur practically at any time. add this to the fact that the gases which form the planet are lighter than water, and you're essentially just being blown around in a big ball of air, in whatever direction the wind takes you - and seeing as saturn's atmosphere is layered with different gases of different temperatures (concluding with a layer of liquid metallic hydrogen above a rocky core), you'd be hard pressed to find a creature that could withstand being blown about into all of these!

3) the atmosphere in saturn is comprised of 0.1% water vapour. any creature living there would have to be able to thrive off very little water and no oxygen.

your ideal specimen would, i guess, be a very large flying creature, perhaps the size of a blue whale, which could breath in water vapour on a very small scale and exhale hydrogen. but that species would probably be short lived.

regarding other organisms, bacteria and the likes, i've no idea whether they could ever spawn there, but neither has anyone.

Answer 3

If you know what planets are compiled of, you would know that Saturn is a gas giant and is incapable of supporting life. But if there were life on Saturn, it would have to be gaseous and absorb gas from Saturn. It would look like a faded figure with orange and white stripes and wouldn't breathe. These creatures need to float.

Answer 4

Highly unlikely that life could exist on Saturn, although not impossible. Any creatures there would almost certainly be able to survive only in the outer, less dense layers of the atmosphere. Physically they could be something like a terrestrial octupus that uses its balloon like main body to drift in Saturn's atmosphere while feeding on all the hydro-carbons there. Its respiratory system would have to be such that it could breathe an atmosphere of mostly hydrogen/helium gas.

Answer 5

I like ur question. I have aloways had a thing against things like SETI b/c they only search for life forms that meet OUR requirements, what if that orginism doesn't need to breath, what if it doesn't dring water H2O,....
Anyway,
Because of the high gravity i'd imagin it would fly or float like a blimp. It could have long tintacles to catch or "filter" the air for food consisting of bacteria or other things. They might not need to breath like i said earlier or, because the air would be held closer to the surface of the planet, they might swoop low to breath and then go back up to eat, like a reverse of our whale. The creatures would create societies and group together for defense against storms and predators. There might be no need for high technology because of the way they have adapted to their environment, but would instead rely on the planet for their food and shelter. When they sleep they float even higher where they can get warmth from the sun's direct light.

Answer 6

scientist beleive that life needs water to form because water is a great substance for allowing certain molecules to form and the entire universe they beleive is made of the same elements. therfore they "assume" that water is a prerequisit to life. on the otherhand i say this will probably turn out to be false. chemical compounds can be very complex and organized to form different systems according to their enviroment. so lets just say that some sort of life form was able to evolve on saturn, then it would have to be able to maintain its structure and therefore it would most likely live in the cloudtops getting its nutrition from the gases in the atmosphere or either some sort of photosynthesis using sunlight. dont get me wrong, im pretty sure there are no life forms on saturn, im just trying to imagine what they would be like if they were there!!!!

Answer 7

If lif did exist in Saturn, it would look like a giant floating octopus. It would have a chamber in its head that would be filled with hot air. (no pun intended) It would need a way to propel itself, i.e wings or something to shoot air out of, it would have tentacles to gather food or whatever it needs to sustain itself, and it may not have to breath. If it does breath, then it would have to breath hydrogen or helium. It would have something like living solar panels to collect energy. It might have body insulation to defend against freezing and it might have armor plating to defend itself against predators, others of its kind or any random chunk of matter that might happen to fall through the atmosphere. It would be VERY strange.

Answer 8

We have seen life on Earth in places no one ever thought it could be. Places such as volcanic vents on the ocean floor and in hot springs. Up until we found such life, we had a view that life might only exist in a very narrow temperature range.

We have found bacteria that survive in high pressure, high temperature sulphurous environments. There are even complex organisms that survive in these extremes.

If life has taken a foot hold on Saturn, it may likely be in the form of bacteria. But this would not be the kind of bacteria you would want to have in your lab for study. At least, not until you have developed strong protocols for controlling it. It will most likely be quite hearty and able to withstand extremes in temperature and chemical attacks. It may be something that, when brought into conditions more suitable for human existance, would be very hard to contain. Without the environmental pressures to keep it in check, it might very well breed out of control.

Or it might explode and freeze.

We might find this bacteria in the upper atmosphere. We may find a mechanism that allows life to survive in the upper regions of Saturns atmosphere, perhaps at a thermal barrirer between two of the atmospheric strata

Because of the size of Saturn, food would be interesting. If the bacteria were to live on other forms of bacteria, then there would have to be a massive amount of bacteria in order for anything to survive. One other possible source of food might be an as yet unknown chemical reaction in the atmosphere that produced long chain organic compounds the bacteria could use for food. The bacteria may also simply use the chemicals in the atmosphere for food. That seems less likely though. Natural systems tend to provide food on a more random basis. This seems to prevent population explosions.

As far as more complex organisms, we may find simple creatures that can survive on the bacteria. As suggested earlier, they may have long tendrils to farm the atmosphere for food. They may look like large jellyfish. Their bell may be capable of providing buoyancy in the upper strata of Saturns atmosphere. The may have tendrils that hang for miles into the lower strata where more compact organisms might live. They could have large areas on their bells to collect heat and light. Or, they might be photophobic. They may rely on heat and food exclusively to promote their life cycle. Mating might be a bit difficult though. Since Saturn is so big, it might be eons before one of these creatures encountered another member of their own species, so perhaps they would use an asexual form of reproduction.

In any case, we as a race have been surprised with the myriad of life on this planet. Life has survived in areas where we expected to find a desert. Life has thrived at depths we never dreamed possible. We may not find intelligent life on Saturn, but we should never rule out life entirely until we have put probes into Saturn and shown for a fact that it is barren. Until then, anything is possible.

Will

Answer 9

Saturn, being a gas giant, is unable to sustain life. However, Titan, one of its moons, is theorized to be potentially suitable to human life in the future.

Answer 10

Sorry, my imagination cannot extend to environments that are completely unsuitable for life in the first place.