Science Forums 2

[alxian]

exactly, while energy is free there isn't much to subsist off of, all creatures require some amount of raw material. when you consider living in full vacuum you are exposed to an extremely dangerous environment requiring more food to repair damage, unless that outer crust is asteroid like, rocky and micrometeorite pitted, you'll get the protection from vacuum radiation and the soft gooey interior can absorb high energy radiation and such for power.. considering the size of a creature though if its large enough it could maintain homeostasis perfectly within itself, any trully toxic compounds can be expelled into space and any resources it requires makes life worth living (it'll have to move around looking for food.

example is that earth itself requires massive amounts of sunlight to keep live stirring down here, but subterranean life manages quite well with the toxic effervescence of the heat from the earths core interacting with volatile compounds in the crust. on a mass small enough you could consider the mantle as being the living creature, the crust its protective skin and a substance at the core that would heat up when exposed to radiation or other hi energy source in local space, again a solvent is required and perhaps a cycle which would carry it around the core of the small (relatively) body, such as enrichment [adding potential energy to the solvent] transport to the living flesh of the creature where it is depleted, then more transport perhaps into storage [which could occur before the depletion stage] and back again, purification which removes any toxic compounds would require a secondary system to remove it from the 'blood' where it could be removed and expelled, though i doubt such a creature would create much toxic waste in the first place.

only where you are dealing with very high energy tissues will you require complex compounds but then those compounds when used up generally they decompose into base compounds again anyway.. such an animal i think would be a fully enclosed system but would require energy in once its own chemical potential has been used up, and by that time it'll have created some pretty toxic materials which could be expelled and caked onto its crusty shell.

then you can think of crystaline creatures that would be powered by resonance, passing thru hi energy fields but would require conversion and storage media for times when there is no ambient energy to absorb.