In my last post, I talked about how all our experiences, knowledge, skills, and talents are ultimately wasted once we die. A high achiever will end up in exactly the same place as someone who did nothing with their life. A rich person will have the same fate as a poor person.
It’s a shame we lose it all in the end.
Yet, there is waste in the universe on a much grander scale.
Imagine a solar system similar to ours, but instead of seven lifeless planets and one teeming with life, there are 8 plus planets orbiting a star – each one, essentially dead. Void of life (as we know it) as some are constantly baked, some are temperate (but still lifeless), while others freeze in the outer orbits. In other words, a completely dead solar system.
The star at the centre of this system is very similar to our sun and continues to provide energy to its sterile planets. It’s been doing that for billions of years and will continue to do so for billions more. Sure, there is a chance that something will change, that life will get a foothold in the future, but there is no guarantee. Surely, not all solar systems produce life.
Imagine the amount of life-giving energy this alien sun has provided in 10 billion years?
And for what? To simply have all its power dissipate into space? To heat up some rocky planet? What’s the purpose in that, unless life evolves at some point?
It’s hard for us to wrap our heads around the concept. One of the rules of living on this planet is that energy comes at a cost and should be conserved whenever possible. We use our natural resources to create most of the power we use, so when someone leaves a light on, we notice it because we’re paying for it. We have been conditioned to conserve energy.
The scale of “wasted energy” in the universe is astounding, and if you look at it in terms of our energy produced on earth, it is mind-boggling.
Our total global energy consumption for one year is 1.6·10^14 kWh. That is what it takes to power planet earth for one calendar year. Our sun will produce 3.41666667 × 10^28 kilowatt hours in that same year, or 3.61 x 10^37 kilowatt-hours of energy over its lifetime.
For a lifeless alien solar system, having that amount of energy simply wasted is hard to fathom.
I believe there is always a reason for things being the way they are. And I’ve racked my brain trying to understand waste on such a scale. But I’m only a simple human, born into a world where there is a limited amount of energy for our use, and I’m conditioned to conserve whenever possible.
Maybe in order for us to exist at all, there has to be waste. Maybe it’s a numbers game. Let’s say life evolves once in every million solar systems. That means most don’t make it. In other words, for us to be that one solar system, millions of other suns burn brightly on dead worlds.
But let’s bring it in to our own solar system for a minute. Imagine the wasted energy hitting the surface of Mercury and Venus? While we struggle to produce enough energy to keep our cities powered, there is more free energy hitting those planets than we could ever use.
Yet, they must exist so we can thrive. We are the third planet; in the goldilocks zone, so to speak, in a solar system of 8. There has to be a first and second.
Anyway, I guess it’s all about perspective.
