Hi, I’m Julian Gough. I write novels (most recently science fiction), children’s books, and hard-to-classify stuff like the End Poem for Minecraft. I’m currently writing a book about the universe, The Egg and the Rock, in public, online, to gather feedback as I go.
I recently published a piece called Life Without Stars: Stanets and Ploons, exploring the fascinating implications of a 2023 paper (Jupiter Mass Binary Objects in the Trapezium Cluster by Pearson and McCaughrean).
The paper reveals that many Jupiter-sized planets are forming in star-making regions, but don’t orbit stars. Some even form binary systems, orbiting each other without stars involved—completely upending standard planetary formation theories.
This has profound implications:
• Most liquid water in the universe is likely in subsurface oceans on moons. • These moons often orbit Jupiter-sized planets. • Starless planets can support more moons due to larger Hill spheres (stable zones for moons).
The surprising but logical conclusion is that most life in the universe might exist without stars.
I’d love your feedback, especially if you’re familiar with this area or simply have fresh thoughts on the topic. It will improve the book. Also, if anyone else has written about these implications, let me know so I can credit them!
Hope you enjoy the piece.
Happy 2025!
– Julian
FYI: "Without Sky"[0] is a (IMO great) short story by Vladislav Surkov, a Kremlin insider. First thing I thought of when I saw the title, but that's probably just me.
[^0] http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue582/without_sky.html
What source of energy is this life using?
Given enough radioactive materials you could get enough energy to sustain life. That's what happens in Earth's depths around thermal vents.
Also, the radioactive decay should last long enough to allow life to form. For instance, in our planet case the radioactive decay will keep the outer core liquid for another billion years give or take, after which we'll have no tectonic movements and no magnetic field anymore. The latter shouldn't be a problem in an universe without stars, but the former means that erosion would eventually smoothen out the whole planet (and have a smooth landmass completely underwater for Earth).
However, having enough radioactive materials that the surface remains hot enough to have liquid water is a problem on its own. You need too much radioactive material to achieve so, meaning that at the beginning (planet formation) you have 100% of the heat output, but after 24k year (assuming all the radioactive material is plutonium) you have 50% of it. So, if you assume that at some point you have enough heat to have liquid water one half-life later that shouldn't be enough. This doesn't take into account the internal heat that the planet contains after millions of planetoids impacts. However, it feels impossible anyway.
Better to go with tidal forces like other comments mentioned (like what happens to Io, one of Jupyter moons).
Probably heat due to gravitational crustal deformation (in multi body systems) and/or radioactivity of planetary constituent elements.
earth is in the goldilocks zone for water, and also has a complete set of all of the elements availible everywhere,and also has localised temperatures from refractory to near cryogenic, ie: in siberia you have to heat the propane in your extream off road rig, or it freezes@-60° we also have surface pressures that vary from so low ,that life is tenious, to so high that life is impossible. All of this points to an almost infinite number of possible habitats and nitches for life to exist or originate in.Here. A basic rule of life is that any nitche will be filled and competed over, more edges, more species,more energy exchange,more competition, more more MORE, not neat, not tidy, not nice, Ice moons are going to be vastly simpler, and less energetic locations for life to exist, and if we do find one, localy, we will mine it for its yummy volitiles, and turn the rest into a salmon farm, yum.The Japanese will pay anything to set up exclusive hotels on an ice moon serving alien sashimi, no matter how tiny and strange, as its already one of there cultural norms. Hungry now.
[dead]