Liquid of Life

Ever since astronomers first analyzed the atmosphere of Jupiter and found a blanket of noxious gases thousands of miles thick, most scientists have assumed that the distant planet is devoid of life. But just because earthlings could not live there, says British Amateur Astronomer Axel Firsoff, is no reason to believe that Jupiter is not a populous place. Animals might well thrive even if their planet is covered with a limpid ocean of cold, liquid ammonia.

Life on earth, Firsoff points out in the British magazine Discovery, is based on the reaction of carbon compounds in water solution. But liquid water is not entirely necessary for life. Jupiter is apparently well stocked with ammonia (NH3), and Firsoff argues that the ammonia would be as satisfactory a solvent as water for supporting life.

"Ammono" chemistry, says the astronomer, is very different from earth's familiar "aquo" chemistry, but there are vital similarities. Both systems produce some well-known compounds, among them the amino acids of which proteins are built. Firsoff is certain that when the first living organisms evolved on earth, the atmosphere above the primeval ocean contained ammonia but no free oxygen. When oxygen accumulated in the atmosphere and ammonia disappeared, life on earth adapted itself to the new conditions. The amino acids that form earth's proteins, says Firsoff, are relics of the prehistoric conditions under which earth life was born.

The digestive systems of modern animals, Firsoff explains, depend on hydrolysis, a process in which proteins, sugars and other compounds are broken down in combination with water. Creatures that have ammonia instead of water in their tissues, would digest food by ammonolysis, i.e., by combining it with ammonia. Instead of oxydizing food to liberate energy as earth's animals do, Jovian animals would combine it with nitrogen, and the final product would be cyanogen (CN)2, a gas that is violently poisonous to life on earth. "Jovian animals," says Astronomer Firsoff, "could breathe nitrogen and drink liquid ammonia. Whether they do remains to be seen."

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