TED2003
Freeman Dyson: Let's look for life in the outer solar system
Filmed:
Readability: 3.4
1,082,785 views
Physicist Freeman Dyson suggests that we start looking for life on the moons of Jupiter and out past Neptune, in the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud. He talks about what such life would be like -- and how we might find it.
Freeman Dyson - Physicist
With Freeman Dyson's astonishing forecasts for the future, it's hard to tell where science ends and science fiction begins. But far from being a wild-eyed visionary, Dyson is a clear and sober thinker -- and one not afraid of controversy or heresy. Full bio
With Freeman Dyson's astonishing forecasts for the future, it's hard to tell where science ends and science fiction begins. But far from being a wild-eyed visionary, Dyson is a clear and sober thinker -- and one not afraid of controversy or heresy. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:18
How will we be remembered in 200 years?
0
0
3000
00:21
I happen to live in a little town, Princeton, in New Jersey,
1
3000
3000
00:24
which every year celebrates the great event in Princeton history:
2
6000
5000
00:29
the Battle of Princeton, which was, in fact, a very important battle.
3
11000
4000
00:33
It was the first battle that George Washington won, in fact,
4
15000
3000
00:36
and was pretty much of a turning point in the war of independence.
5
18000
5000
00:41
It happened 225 years ago.
6
23000
3000
00:44
It was actually a terrible disaster for Princeton.
7
26000
4000
00:48
The town was burned down; it was in the middle of winter,
8
30000
4000
00:52
and it was a very, very severe winter.
9
34000
3000
00:55
And about a quarter of all the people in Princeton died that winter
10
37000
4000
00:59
from hunger and cold, but nobody remembers that.
11
41000
5000
01:04
What they remember is, of course, the great triumph,
12
46000
2000
01:06
that the Brits were beaten, and we won, and that the country was born.
13
48000
8000
01:14
And so I agree very emphatically that the pain of childbirth is not remembered.
14
56000
7000
01:21
It's the child that's remembered.
15
63000
2000
01:23
And that's what we're going through at this time.
16
65000
4000
01:27
I wanted to just talk for one minute about the future of biotechnology,
17
69000
8000
01:35
because I think I know very little about that -- I'm not a biologist --
18
77000
3000
01:38
so everything I know about it can be said in one minute.
19
80000
3000
01:41
(Laughter)
20
83000
3000
01:44
What I'm saying is that we should follow the model
21
86000
3000
01:47
that has been so successful with the electronic industry,
22
89000
4000
01:51
that what really turned computers into a great success, in the world
23
93000
5000
01:56
as a whole, is toys. As soon as computers became toys,
24
98000
5000
02:01
when kids could come home and play with them,
25
103000
3000
02:04
then the industry really took off. And that has to happen with biotech.
26
106000
5000
02:09
There's a huge --
27
111000
1000
02:10
(Laughter)
28
112000
2000
02:12
(Applause)
29
114000
3000
02:15
-- there's a huge community of people in the world
30
117000
3000
02:18
who are practical biologists, who are dog breeders,
31
120000
3000
02:21
pigeon breeders, orchid breeders, rose breeders,
32
123000
7000
02:28
people who handle biology with their hands,
33
130000
3000
02:31
and who are dedicated to producing beautiful things, beautiful creatures,
34
133000
7000
02:38
plants, animals, pets. These people will be empowered with biotech,
35
140000
7000
02:45
and that will be an enormous positive step
36
147000
6000
02:51
to acceptance of biotechnology.
37
153000
4000
02:55
That will blow away a lot of the opposition.
38
157000
5000
03:00
When people have this technology in their hands,
39
162000
2000
03:02
you have a do-it-yourself biotech kit, grow your own --
40
164000
8000
03:10
grow your dog, grow your own cat.
41
172000
2000
03:12
(Laughter)
42
174000
2000
03:14
(Applause)
43
176000
4000
03:18
Just buy the software, you design it. I won't say anymore,
44
180000
6000
03:24
you can take it on from there. It's going to happen, and
45
186000
6000
03:30
I think it has to happen before the technology becomes natural,
46
192000
8000
03:38
becomes part of the human condition,
47
200000
3000
03:41
something that everybody's familiar with and everybody accepts.
48
203000
3000
03:44
So, let's leave that aside.
49
206000
3000
03:47
I want to talk about something quite different,
50
209000
3000
03:50
which is what I know about, and that is astronomy.
51
212000
4000
03:54
And I'm interested in searching for life in the universe.
52
216000
4000
03:58
And it's open to us to introduce a new way of doing that,
53
220000
5000
04:03
and that's what I'll talk about for 10 minutes,
54
225000
2000
04:05
or whatever the time remains.
55
227000
2000
04:12
The important fact is, that most of the real estate
56
234000
3000
04:15
that's accessible to us -- I'm not talking about the stars,
57
237000
3000
04:18
I'm talking about the solar system, the stuff that's within reach
58
240000
4000
04:22
for spacecraft and within reach of our earthbound telescopes --
59
244000
6000
04:28
most of the real estate is very cold and very far from the Sun.
60
250000
6000
04:34
If you look at the solar system, as we know it today,
61
256000
4000
04:38
it has a few planets close to the Sun. That's where we live.
62
260000
5000
04:43
It has a fairly substantial number of asteroids between
63
265000
6000
04:49
the orbit of the Earth out through -- to the orbit of Jupiter.
64
271000
5000
04:54
The asteroids are a substantial amount of real estate,
65
276000
3000
04:57
but not very large. And it's not very promising for life,
66
279000
5000
05:02
since most of it consists of rock and metal, mostly rock.
67
284000
4000
05:06
It's not only cold, but very dry.
68
288000
5000
05:11
So the asteroids we don't have much hope for.
69
293000
6000
05:17
There stand some interesting places a little further out:
70
299000
5000
05:22
the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.
71
304000
2000
05:24
Particularly, there's a place called Europa, which is --
72
306000
2000
05:26
Europa is one of the moons of Jupiter,
73
308000
3000
05:29
where we see a very level ice surface,
74
311000
5000
05:34
which looks as if it's floating on top of an ocean.
75
316000
3000
05:37
So, we believe that on Europa there is, in fact, a deep ocean.
76
319000
4000
05:41
And that makes it extraordinarily interesting as a place to explore.
77
323000
4000
05:45
Ocean -- probably the most likely place for life to originate,
78
327000
7000
05:52
just as it originated on the Earth. So we would love to explore Europa,
79
334000
7000
05:59
to go down through the ice,
80
341000
2000
06:01
find out who is swimming around in the ocean,
81
343000
3000
06:04
whether there are fish or seaweed or sea monsters --
82
346000
5000
06:09
whatever there may be that's exciting --- or cephalopods.
83
351000
6000
06:15
But that's hard to do. Unfortunately, the ice is thick.
84
357000
6000
06:21
We don't know just how thick it is, probably miles thick,
85
363000
3000
06:24
so it's very expensive and very difficult to go down there --
86
366000
4000
06:28
send down your submarine or whatever it is -- and explore.
87
370000
4000
06:32
That's something we don't yet know how to do.
88
374000
3000
06:35
There are plans to do it, but it's hard.
89
377000
5000
06:40
Go out a bit further, you'll find that beyond the orbit of Neptune,
90
382000
3000
06:43
way out, far from the Sun, that's where the real estate really begins.
91
385000
6000
06:49
You'll find millions or trillions or billions of objects which,
92
391000
5000
06:54
in what we call the Kuiper Belt or the Oort Cloud --
93
396000
3000
06:57
these are clouds of small objects which appear as comets
94
399000
6000
07:03
when they fall close to the Sun. Mostly, they just live out there
95
405000
4000
07:07
in the cold of the outer solar system,
96
409000
3000
07:10
but they are biologically very interesting indeed,
97
412000
4000
07:14
because they consist primarily of ice with other minerals,
98
416000
4000
07:18
which are just the right ones for developing life.
99
420000
3000
07:21
So if life could be established out there,
100
423000
3000
07:24
it would have all the essentials -- chemistry and sunlight --
101
426000
6000
07:30
everything that's needed.
102
432000
3000
07:33
So, what I'm proposing
103
435000
3000
07:36
is that there is where we should be looking for life, rather than on Mars,
104
438000
4000
07:40
although Mars is, of course, also a very promising and interesting place.
105
442000
4000
07:44
But we can look outside, very cheaply and in a simple fashion.
106
446000
5000
07:49
And that's what I'm going to talk about.
107
451000
4000
07:53
There is a -- imagine that life originated on Europa,
108
455000
5000
07:58
and it was sitting in the ocean for billions of years.
109
460000
4000
08:02
It's quite likely that it would move out of the ocean onto the surface,
110
464000
4000
08:06
just as it did on the Earth.
111
468000
2000
08:08
Staying in the ocean and evolving in the ocean for 2 billion years,
112
470000
3000
08:11
finally came out onto the land. And then of course it had great --
113
473000
4000
08:15
much greater freedom, and a much greater variety of creatures
114
477000
4000
08:19
developed on the land than had ever been possible in the ocean.
115
481000
4000
08:23
And the step from the ocean to the land was not easy, but it happened.
116
485000
6000
08:29
Now, if life had originated on Europa in the ocean,
117
491000
4000
08:33
it could also have moved out onto the surface.
118
495000
2000
08:35
There wouldn't have been any air there -- it's a vacuum.
119
497000
3000
08:38
It is out in the cold, but it still could have come.
120
500000
6000
08:44
You can imagine that the plants growing up like kelp
121
506000
4000
08:48
through cracks in the ice, growing on the surface.
122
510000
4000
08:52
What would they need in order to grow on the surface?
123
514000
2000
08:54
They'd need, first of all, to have a thick skin to protect themselves
124
516000
6000
09:00
from losing water through the skin.
125
522000
6000
09:06
So they would have to have something like a reptilian skin.
126
528000
5000
09:11
But better -- what is more important
127
533000
2000
09:13
is that they would have to concentrate sunlight.
128
535000
3000
09:16
The sunlight in Jupiter, on the satellites of Jupiter,
129
538000
4000
09:20
is 25 times fainter than it is here,
130
542000
4000
09:24
since Jupiter is five times as far from the Sun.
131
546000
2000
09:26
So they would have to have -- these creatures, which I call sunflowers,
132
548000
4000
09:30
which I imagine living on the surface of Europa, would have to have
133
552000
6000
09:36
either lenses or mirrors to concentrate sunlight,
134
558000
4000
09:40
so they could keep themselves warm on the surface.
135
562000
4000
09:44
Otherwise, they would be at a temperature of minus 150,
136
566000
4000
09:48
which is certainly not favorable for developing life,
137
570000
3000
09:51
at least of the kind we know.
138
573000
2000
09:53
But if they just simply could grow, like leaves,
139
575000
3000
09:56
little lenses and mirrors to concentrate sunlight,
140
578000
3000
09:59
then they could keep warm on the surface.
141
581000
3000
10:02
They could enjoy all the benefits of the sunlight
142
584000
5000
10:07
and have roots going down into the ocean;
143
589000
4000
10:11
life then could flourish much more.
144
593000
2000
10:13
So, why not look? Of course, it's not very likely
145
595000
3000
10:16
that there's life on the surface of Europa.
146
598000
2000
10:18
None of these things is likely, but my,
147
600000
3000
10:21
my philosophy is, look for what's detectable, not for what's probable.
148
603000
6000
10:27
There's a long history in astronomy of unlikely things
149
609000
4000
10:31
turning out to be there. And I mean,
150
613000
2000
10:33
the finest example of that was radio astronomy as a whole.
151
615000
3000
10:36
This was -- originally, when radio astronomy began,
152
618000
5000
10:41
Mr. Jansky, at the Bell labs, detected radio waves coming from the sky.
153
623000
10000
10:51
And the regular astronomers were scornful about this.
154
633000
4000
10:55
They said, "It's all right, you can detect radio waves from the Sun,
155
637000
6000
11:01
but the Sun is the only object in the universe that's close enough
156
643000
3000
11:04
and bright enough actually to be detectable. You can easily calculate
157
646000
5000
11:09
that radio waves from the Sun are fairly faint,
158
651000
4000
11:13
and everything else in the universe is millions of times further away,
159
655000
6000
11:19
so it certainly will not be detectable.
160
661000
2000
11:21
So there's no point in looking."
161
663000
2000
11:23
And that, of course, that set back the progress of radio astronomy
162
665000
5000
11:28
by about 20 years.
163
670000
5000
11:33
Since there was nothing there, you might as well not look.
164
675000
3000
11:36
Well, of course, as soon as anybody did look,
165
678000
2000
11:38
which was after about 20 years,
166
680000
3000
11:41
when radio astronomy really took off. Because it turned out
167
683000
2000
11:43
the universe is absolutely full of all kinds of wonderful things
168
685000
4000
11:47
radiating in the radio spectrum, much brighter than the Sun.
169
689000
6000
11:53
So, the same thing could be true for this kind of life,
170
695000
5000
11:58
which I'm talking about, on cold objects: that it could in fact
171
700000
4000
12:02
be very abundant all over the universe, and it's not been detected
172
704000
4000
12:06
just because we haven't taken the trouble to look.
173
708000
4000
12:10
So, the last thing I want to talk about is how to detect it.
174
712000
5000
12:15
There is something called pit lamping.
175
717000
2000
12:17
That's the phrase which I learned from my son George,
176
719000
2000
12:19
who is there in the audience.
177
721000
2000
12:21
You take -- that's a Canadian expression.
178
723000
7000
12:28
If you happen to want to hunt animals at night,
179
730000
2000
12:30
you take a miner's lamp, which is a pit lamp.
180
732000
4000
12:34
You strap it onto your forehead, so you can see
181
736000
3000
12:37
the reflection in the eyes of the animal. So, if you go out at night,
182
739000
4000
12:41
you shine a flashlight, the animals are bright.
183
743000
7000
12:48
You see the red glow in their eyes,
184
750000
3000
12:51
which is the reflection of the flashlight.
185
753000
2000
12:53
And then, if you're one of these unsporting characters,
186
755000
5000
12:58
you shoot the animals and take them home.
187
760000
3000
13:01
And of course, that spoils the game
188
763000
2000
13:03
for the other hunters who hunt in the daytime,
189
765000
2000
13:05
so in Canada that's illegal. In New Zealand, it's legal,
190
767000
5000
13:10
because the New Zealand farmers use this as a way of getting rid of rabbits,
191
772000
5000
13:15
because the rabbits compete with the sheep in New Zealand.
192
777000
3000
13:18
So, the farmers go out at night
193
780000
2000
13:20
with heavily armed jeeps, and shine the headlights,
194
782000
5000
13:25
and anything that doesn't look like a sheep, you shoot.
195
787000
4000
13:29
(Laughter)
196
791000
2000
13:31
So I have proposed to apply the same trick
197
793000
3000
13:34
to looking for life in the universe.
198
796000
2000
13:36
That if these creatures who are living on cold surfaces --
199
798000
3000
13:39
either on Europa, or further out, anywhere where you can live
200
801000
4000
13:43
on a cold surface -- those creatures must be provided with reflectors.
201
805000
6000
13:49
In order to concentrate sunlight, they have to have lenses and mirrors --
202
811000
3000
13:52
in order to keep themselves warm.
203
814000
2000
13:54
And then, when you shine sunlight at them,
204
816000
4000
13:58
the sunlight will be reflected back,
205
820000
3000
14:01
just as it is in the eyes of an animal.
206
823000
5000
14:06
So these creatures will be bright against the cold surroundings.
207
828000
4000
14:10
And the further out you go in this, away from the Sun,
208
832000
4000
14:14
the more powerful this reflection will be. So actually,
209
836000
4000
14:18
this method of hunting for life gets stronger and stronger
210
840000
3000
14:21
as you go further away,
211
843000
2000
14:23
because the optical reflectors have to be more powerful so the reflected light
212
845000
5000
14:28
shines out even more in contrast against the dark background.
213
850000
6000
14:34
So as you go further away from the Sun,
214
856000
2000
14:36
this becomes more and more powerful.
215
858000
4000
14:40
So, in fact, you can look for these creatures with telescopes from the Earth.
216
862000
6000
14:46
Why aren't we doing it? Simply because nobody thought of it yet.
217
868000
4000
14:50
But I hope that we shall look, and with any --
218
872000
5000
14:55
we probably won't find anything,
219
877000
2000
14:57
none of these speculations may have any basis in fact.
220
879000
4000
15:01
But still, it's a good chance. And of course, if it happens,
221
883000
3000
15:04
it will transform our view of life altogether.
222
886000
3000
15:07
Because it means that -- the way life can live out there,
223
889000
5000
15:12
it has enormous advantages as compared with living on a planet.
224
894000
3000
15:15
It's extremely hard to move from one planet to another.
225
897000
4000
15:19
We're having great difficulties at the moment
226
901000
4000
15:23
and any creatures that live on a planet are pretty well stuck.
227
905000
4000
15:27
Especially if you breathe air,
228
909000
2000
15:29
it's very hard to get from planet A to planet B,
229
911000
3000
15:32
because there's no air in between. But if you breathe air --
230
914000
3000
15:38
(Laughter)
231
920000
5000
15:43
-- you're dead --
232
925000
1000
15:44
(Laughter)
233
926000
2000
15:46
-- as soon as you're off the planet, unless you have a spaceship.
234
928000
4000
15:50
But if you live in a vacuum, if you live on the surface
235
932000
3000
15:53
of one of these objects, say, in the Kuiper Belt,
236
935000
3000
15:56
this -- an object like Pluto, or one of the
237
938000
3000
15:59
smaller objects in the neighborhood of Pluto,
238
941000
4000
16:03
and you happened -- if you're living on the surface there,
239
945000
2000
16:05
and you get knocked off the surface by a collision,
240
947000
3000
16:08
then it doesn't change anything all that much.
241
950000
3000
16:11
You still are on a piece of ice, you can still have sunlight
242
953000
4000
16:15
and you can still survive while you're traveling from one place to another.
243
957000
4000
16:19
And then if you run into another object, you can stay there
244
961000
4000
16:23
and colonize the other object. So life will spread, then,
245
965000
3000
16:26
from one object to another. So if it exists at all in the Kuiper Belt,
246
968000
4000
16:30
it's likely to be very widespread. And you will have then
247
972000
3000
16:33
a great competition amongst species -- Darwinian evolution --
248
975000
5000
16:38
so there'll be a huge advantage to the species
249
980000
3000
16:41
which is able to jump from one place to another
250
983000
4000
16:45
without having to wait for a collision. And there'll be advantages
251
987000
4000
16:49
for spreading out long, sort of kelp-like forest of vegetation.
252
991000
7000
16:56
I call these creatures sunflowers.
253
998000
2000
16:58
They look like, maybe like sunflowers.
254
1000000
3000
17:01
They have to be all the time pointing toward the Sun,
255
1003000
3000
17:04
and they will be able to spread out in space,
256
1006000
3000
17:07
because gravity on these objects is weak.
257
1009000
4000
17:11
So they can collect sunlight from a big area.
258
1013000
3000
17:14
So they will, in fact, be quite easy for us to detect.
259
1016000
4000
17:18
So, I hope in the next 10 years, we'll find these creatures,
260
1020000
3000
17:21
and then, of course, our whole view of life in the universe will change.
261
1023000
5000
17:26
If we don't find them, then we can create them ourselves.
262
1028000
4000
17:30
(Laughter)
263
1032000
3000
17:33
That's another wonderful opportunity that's opening.
264
1035000
7000
17:40
We can -- as soon as we have a little bit more understanding
265
1042000
3000
17:43
of genetic engineering, one of the things you can do with your
266
1045000
5000
17:48
take-it-home, do-it-yourself genetic engineering kit --
267
1050000
3000
17:51
(Laughter) --
268
1053000
2000
17:53
is to design a creature that can live on a cold satellite,
269
1055000
3000
17:56
a place like Europa, so we could colonize Europa with our own creatures.
270
1058000
5000
18:01
That would be a fun thing to do.
271
1063000
4000
18:05
(Laughter)
272
1067000
3000
18:08
In the long run, of course,
273
1070000
3000
18:11
it would also make it possible for us to move out there.
274
1073000
5000
18:16
What's going to happen in the end,
275
1078000
2000
18:18
it's not going to be just humans colonizing space,
276
1080000
3000
18:21
it's going to be life moving out from the Earth,
277
1083000
4000
18:25
moving it into its kingdom. And the kingdom of life,
278
1087000
3000
18:28
of course, is going to be the universe. And if life is already there,
279
1090000
5000
18:33
it makes it much more exciting, in the short run.
280
1095000
3000
18:36
But in the long run, if there's no life there, we create it ourselves.
281
1098000
6000
18:42
We transform the universe into something much more rich and beautiful
282
1104000
4000
18:46
than it is today.
283
1108000
2000
18:48
So again, we have a big and wonderful future to look forward.
284
1110000
5000
18:53
Thank you.
285
1115000
1000
18:54
(Applause)
286
1116000
12000
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Freeman Dyson - PhysicistWith Freeman Dyson's astonishing forecasts for the future, it's hard to tell where science ends and science fiction begins. But far from being a wild-eyed visionary, Dyson is a clear and sober thinker -- and one not afraid of controversy or heresy.
Why you should listen
From inventing Dyson Spheres, a sci-fi conceit postulating habitable shells around Sol-like stars, to "space chickens" and trees that grow in comets, Freeman Dyson is not afraid to go out on a cosmic limb. It would be wrong, however, to categorize him as a publicity-hungry peddler of headline-grabbing ideas. In his 60-year career as one of planet Earth's most distinguished scientists, several things characterize Dyson more than anything else: compassion, caution and overwhelming humanism.
In addition to his work as a scientist, Dyson is a renowned and best-selling author. His most recent book, A Many-Colored Glass, tackles nothing less than biotechnology, religion and the role of life in the universe. He does not shy away from controversy: His recent critiques of the politics of the global warming debate have raised the hackles of some environmentalists. But far from wielding his conclusions like a bludgeon, Dyson wants younger generations of scientists to take away one thing from his work -- the necessity to create heresies of their own.
Freeman Dyson | Speaker | TED.com