Designing an Alien for Saturn: 5 Special Features for Survival

[blah blah]

I desperately need help with my science homework!

In science, I have to create an alien. I am in seventh grade so bear with me here. Last week I did a project on Saturn. It was just general information about it. Now we have to create an alien with 5 special features that would enable it to live on the planet we did our project on. I have most of it figured out, but I need help with the special features. So far I have:

1. Sharp teeth/fangs to break down the ice chunks in the rings, so it can eat them and convert them into energy.
2. Wings to help it fly through the rings and get around the gas surface.
3. Thick scales to protect it from enemies/human satellites.
4. Cold-blooded so its blood changes with the extreme cold temperatures of saturn so it can stay warm.
5. Gills that combine the helium and hydrogen in the atmosphere to create ?, which it breathes.

Can someone figure out what helium and hydrogen combined is? This project is 2 homework grades.

 

[bross7]

Hydrogen and Helium really wouldn't combine to make anything. Helium is an inert gas which doesn't react.

 

[blah blah]

it wouldn't combine at all? are you sure?

 

[maverickmathematics]

For the Helium adn hydrogen thing, they may been what if you combine the 3 protons and 3 neutrons to give the 3rd element of the periodict table.

 

[Pengwuino]

3. Thick scales to protect it from enemies/human satellites.

What ?

 

[blah blah]

What ?

It means if there are more than one of this species and if a satellite from Earth somehow goes into the rings of saturn and hits the alien, it will not get hurt.

 

[blah blah]

Never mind my girlfriend just said to make it breathe both at the same time.

 

[Pengwuino]

... what exactly is this project?

 

[JamesU]

I've had this project. it doesn't really have to be scientifically accurate..bear with him, like he said

 

[DaveC426913]

Something you may have to revise if you don't want to get docked marks:
"... Sharp teeth/fangs to break down the ice chunks in the rings, so it can eat them and convert them into energy...Wings to help it fly through the rings and get around the gas surface..."

The rings of Saturn are way out in space, nowhere near the atmosphere. No living thing (even an alien one) could get to them from the atmosphere.

Here are some suggestions:
- a bouyancy bladder, which it fills with Hydrogen so that it can remain aloft perpetually (remember, nowhere to land!)
- if it had armour, it wouldn't be light enough to float. It will need some other method of keeping predators away. Camouflage?

 

[Ouabache]

To give you some more ideas, take a look in the library at a book by Carl Sagan, Cosmos. If you're lucky, they may have the video series by the same title. He has a chapter that discusses hypothetical life on a Jovian planet. Dave, in mentioning "bouyancy bladder", reminded me of Sagan's floaters, one potential lifeform within the atmosphere of a large gas planet. Carl describes others and how they may live too.

 

[honestrosewater]

- if it had armour, it wouldn't be light enough to float. It will need some other method of keeping predators away. Camouflage?

Or venom. To avoid being caught or hit by something, just be fast and agile- ever had trouble swatting a fly? And if it's caught, the venom should be fast-acting, either killing or paralyzing the predator. So something like a venomous flying insect with a buoyancy bladder. I think working out a cool social structure would be great and could be one of the five special features. You can look at social insects like bees or ants to get ideas. There isn't really anywhere nice for them to nest, so maybe the young live on the parents (or someone) until they are able to move around on their own, or they are able to move around from birth. Maybe these creatures use their bodies to create a hive. So some of them would be the hive, some would reproduce, some would gather food, etc., or they could rotate responsibilities. Meekrats (I think that's them- Timon from the Lion King was a meekrat) take turns acting as sentinel; The sentinel watches for predators (mostly birds of prey, I think) while the others run around eating. If a predator approaches, the sentinel alerts the group, and they all hide. There are other examples like this if you look aroud a little.

BTW, did you ever consider letting these aliens be humans? What would humans need to do to live on Saturn? Maybe that's not really what your teacher had in mind for the project, but it certainly works, and I think it would be interesting.