title: 'World Building: Atmospheres & Chemistry'

tags: []
---
http://mu.org/~joe/traveller/house/worldbuilding.html

World Building: Atmospheres & Chemistry

By Thad Coons <104765.503@compuserve.com>
Nitrogen I & II
(In which ammonia-dwellers find the universe is biased against them.)
Nitrogen is third among the Big Four, and is likely to be found just about
anywhere. Just as oxygen does, nitrogen combines with hydrogen. The product is
ammonia, and this is nitrogen's major source.

Because of their combining tendencies, if you only had those two elements, you
would a choice of ammonia with excess hydrogen, or ammonia with excess nitrogen.
Nitrogen, like oxygen, is gaseous.

Nitrogen does not have strong combining tendencies with oxygen. Nitrogen oxides can
be formed, but they require an input of energy. They are not major components of
natural atmospheres under anything like earth-like conditions of temperature and
pressure, and especially not in thin atmospheres.

Part of the bias is that nitrogen and ammonia with it are less abundant in the
first place than oxygen and water are. If that wasn't bad enough, ammonia has a
smaller molecular weight than water, so water sticks to planets better. Even worse,
if cool your planet down, water condenses and freezes out first, while ammonia is
still floating around in the upper atmosphere. Worst of all, it is more easily
broken up by ultraviolet light than water is leaving only the nitrogen gas behind.

Once you try introducing free oxygen into the system, however, the bias really
begins to bite. First of all, you can forget about ammonia oceans with oxygen
atmospheres. The oxygen gobbles up ammonia's hydrogen leaving you with water and
nitrogen. (Sound familiar, Terrans?)

This leaves you with a limited set of choices for three-element planetary
envelopes. Type 1 is water-and-ammonia in hydrogen. Type 2 is water-and-ammonia in
Nitrogen. Type 3 is water in nitrogen-and-oxygen.

In the first two, you can guess which component, water or ammonia, is most likely
to dominate. If you guessed ammonia, try again.

Overall, then, the universe is not kind to ammonia-lovers. However, all is not
lost. One of the Big four isn't vanquished all that easily. Terra itself had an
early atmosphere, circa the orgin of life, without free oxygen, which suggests a
type 1 or type 2 atmosphere: Various lines of evidence suggest type 2 as more
likely. Make the earth a little bit bigger, and further out, or turn down the sun a
tad...

Furthermore, ammonia is quite soluble in liquid water, which could help preserve
it. Also, water and ammonia have different temperature ranges where they are
liquid: If the water freezes out, ammonia oceans become possible. These temperature
ranges are also sensitive to atmospheric pressure, and dissolved substances: but I
am not so certain about the details.

The nitrogen gas present in type 2 and 3 environments is chemically quite sluggish,
and there are two major ways organisms can incorporate it.

There are Terran bacteria which metabolize ammonia, releasing nitrogen gas and
water, taking advantage of the reaction discussed in Nitrogen I. If this reaction
were reversed by connecting it to an energy-generating mechanism like that of
photosynthesis, it might provide a substitute for the oxygen-powered combustion
reactions used in terran life.

The other process is used by terran life, and involves using nitrogen oxides.
Although these require energy to produce, Lightning provides a natural source.
Also, some plants are capable of fixing nitrogen biochemically, though at some
cost. Nitrogen oxides react with water to form nitric acid and nitrous acide,
giving nitrates and nitrites.

Terran life uses these to store nitrogen in a more tractable form than nitrogen
gas, but in an environment where free oxygen is in short supply, the nitrates and
nitrites make an excellent way to store oxygen. The chemical energy and oxygen
stored in nitrates are in fact used by some terran bacteria to support their life
processes. Plants which make use of nitrates and nitrites have ways to controllably
oxidize them to the amines they use in proteins, and these reactions are in
principle reversible.

A plausible basis for an alien biochemistry would be for plantlike organisms to

photosynthetically produce ammonia and oxygen from nitrogen and water, and instead
of releasing the oxygen, incorporate it with nitrogen into nitrates.

Animals eat the plants containing ammonium nitrates, and slowly release its
explosive energy, to power their life processes, returning nitrogen and water to
the environment.

Variant are possible, depending on whether ammonia must be generated or is

available in the environment, and whether nitrates are available in the environment
or must be generated.

Would this biochemistry be alien? yes. Impossible? Not necessarily. Its components
are known to exist. Rare, or abundant? Insufficent data.

On type 1 worlds, life is under the necessity to expel the excess hydrogen from
both water and ammonia; a considerable handicap for life.

However attractive this possibility might be, a combination of hydrogen, oxygen,

and nitrogen alone cannot give us the large and varied molecules and macromolecules
that are characteristic of life. For this, we have to have something like the last
of the big four... carbon.

Carbon
Carbon is the fourth of the big 4 elements, and necessary for most easily
imaginable forms of life.
Carbon is mostly found in combination with hydrogen, as would be expected from the
saturation of the universe with hydrogen; the combination is methane.

A surplus of hydrogen in a system gives methane in a hydrogen atmosphere. Since

methane is the lightest of the series, methane, ammonia, and water, it is the most
likely to be lost from a planet.

However, if breakup by ultraviolet light is the primary cause of loss of hydrogen,

then carbon is likely to be retained. Dehydrogenation of carbon compounds gives
rise to increasing numbers and varieties of hydrocarbon compounds that are
progressively heavier, wiht higher melting and boiling points.

However, almost no systems are pure carbon and hydrogen, and given the existence of
hydrogen poor worlds, it makes sense to consider carbon-oxygen systems. Carbon and
oxygen, like the big four and hydrogen, but unlike nitrogen and oxygen, form stable
compounds with a release of energy, and will not coexist for long as the pure
elements.

Carbon forms two important compounds with oxygen: carbon monoxide, and carbon
dioxide. A range of proportions exists, but we can consider environments to be
oxygen-rich, which gives carbon dioxide and a surplus of oxygen, and oxygen-poor,
which will have varying amounts of carbon monoxide.

Given the cosmic abundances of oxygen and carbon, you can expect most worlds to be
oxygen-rich in this sense. On hydrogen-poor worlds, you can expect significant
amounts of carbon dioxide, for at least four reasons. The lack of substantial
formation of nitrogen oxides leaves a carbon-oxygen combination as the next in
line. The general oxygen-richness of the universe indicates dioxide. Of all the
gases considered so far, carbon dioxide is by far the heaviest, and most likely to
stick to a planet. It will stick when even molecular oxygen and nitrogen are lost.

The general progression goes something like this. On high-hydrogen worlds, where
there is a surplus of hydrogen, there is not much opportunity for hydrogen-
saturated oxygen and water to react. However, as the hydrogen content of a system
decreases into the middle hydrogen range, there is increased opportunity for water
to react with unsaturated hydrocarbons. among the first and simplest of these are
the alcohols. At a further stage, there are the aldehydes and at a further stage,
the organic acids. Just as ammonia does not tolerate the presence of free oxygen,
neither do hydrocarbons in large quantities. They rapidly undergo combustion to
Carbon Dioxide and water.

The reaction of carbon and nitrogen is much like that of oxygen and nitrogen: they
can coexist almost indefinitely without reacting much. Nevertheless, many compounds
containing both carbon and nitrogen can be formed with a modest input of energy.
Binding with carbon has a stabilizing effect on a great many nitrogen compounds.
Some of the most important, such as the nucleic and amino acids, have vital
nitrogen components.

The dominant reactions of life, Photosynthesis: water + CO2 = oxygen +

carbohydrates, and respiration, its reverse, should be too familiar to need an
extended discussion.

For now, a closing summary will suffice.

Summary
The presence of carbon does not significantly alter the major environmental types.
Its relatively lesser abundance and its affinity for oxygen and similar behavior
toward nitrogen do not further divide the classes much. The classifications, and
examples from sol system, are presented here
Type 1 environments.
Water, ammonia, and methane. Hydrogen present in excess. Unlikely to originate or
sustain life, due to hydrogen saturation of bonding capabilities. In Sol sytem,
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, though these last two begin to approach a type 2
composition.
Type 2 environments.
Atmosphere nitrogen based. Water, ammonia, complex hydrocarbons and their oxygen
and nitrogen derivatives. No free oxygen. Most likely environments for origins of
carbon-based life. In Sol system, Titan. Earth was probably once a type 2.
Type 3 environments.
Atmosphere largely nitrogen, with free oxygen, Water and carbon dioxide present.
May sustain life, but probably not originate it. In Sol system, Earth. Mars may
have been a type 3 once.
Type 4 environments.
Atmosphere largely carbon dioxide, possibly with nitrogen or oxygen or both. Water
not present. Probably do not sustain life. In Sol system, Mars and Venus.
Type 5 enviromnents.
No significant atmosphere. In Sol system, Mercury and Luna, Pluto, probably others.
The general trend is with decreasing size and increasing temperature, which have
somewhat similar effects.
It should be noted that there can be a great variety of worlds in any given class,
depending on temperature, atmospheric density, and details of the composition. A
planet is classed primarily by its atmosphere, with liquid (if any) given secondary
importance, and solids least.

This classification cuts across the UWP physical profile, and so it is of somewhat
limited use. However, for world builders who would like design their alien
environments with some care, and not rely strictly on random dice rolls, or those
artists who desire a semblance of reality, this should provide something of a
guide.

Traveller is a registered trademark of Far Future Enterprises.

Portions of this material are Copyright ©1977-1996 Far Future Enterprises.
Joseph Heck (joe@mu.org) 21 August 2000
http://traveller.mu.org/house/worldbuilding.html