Originally published 4 March 1996
If memory serves me right, my first true love was Princess Aura, daughter of Ming the Merciless of the planet Mongo. Aura had a thing for Flash Gordon, and pointy-nosed Ming was besmitten with Flash’s girl companion Dale. I can’t remember how these attractions worked themselves out, but we can be sure they had chaste conclusions after some titillating preliminaries.
It was from Flash’s adventures on Mongo that I learned the First Law of Alien Life: All women on other planets are young, beautiful, and scantily clad; all men are beastly, misshapen, or otherwise unattractive.
The First Law has a Corollary: If we ever make contact with extraterrestrials, even a halfway decent-looking human male will be much in demand. To put it bluntly, Mongo girls are easy.
No wonder, then, that us guys have invested so much interest in the search for other planets. If you’ve grown up with Princess Aura, Queen Undina (of Mongo’s undersea kingdom), and Queen Fria (of Mongo’s ice kingdom), all utterly alien and utterly delectable, then — well, worlds beyond Pluto start looking pretty good.
Recent reports of the discovery of planets around nearby stars are therefore greeted with more than scientific interest.
Unfortunately, science does not do much to keep our dreams alive.
Consider the first of the newly discovered planets, the one orbiting the sun-like star 51 Pegasi. The planet has a mass 150 times that of Earth and circles its star even closer than Mercury orbits the sun.
If we assume that the planet’s average density is about that of Earth, then creatures on such a massive planet would weigh 5 times more than on Earth, a crushing load. The planet might support ground-hugging centipedes, maybe, but no tall, willowy princesses.
And then there’s the problem of the planet’s proximity to its star. The surface temperature would be in excess of 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. No water for Queen Undina, no ice for Queen Fria. Nothing but scorched rock.
We have much the same problems for the other two newly discovered planets. The planet orbiting the star 47 Ursae Majoris might seem to offer the best hunting ground for aliens. That planet is about twice Earth’s distance from its sun, which suggests more tolerable temperatures.
However, this planet is even more massive than the one near 51 Pegasi, with a surface gravity eight times greater than on Earth (assuming an Earth-like density). Even ground-hugging centipedes would feel the burden.
Which brings us to the Second Law of Alien Life: The dominant creatures on other planets will always be at a stage of evolution just decades in advance of our own.
This makes it possible, for example, for Flash Gordon to be on the same psycho-sexual wavelength as Queen Azura of Mongo, from whom Earthlings acquired the idea of the string bikini.
In this respect, the new planetary discoveries hold some promise.
The lifetime of a star is determined by its mass. Stars more massive than the sun can burn out quickly, not allowing time for life to evolve to our level of physical and intellectual development.
Stars less massive than the sun can live virtually forever. Some have been around since the beginning of the galaxy, time enough for evolution to far surpass our level of development.
All three newly discovered planets orbit stars roughly similar to our own — yellow, mid-sized, mid-mass stars. Enough time for life to reach and barely surpass our level of development, in conformity with the Second Law, but not so much as to leave us far behind.
The Third Law of Alien Life is also worth considering: All intelligent extraterrestrials speak English.
This makes it possible for Ming the Merciless to say things like this to lovely Dale, which stands as one of the great pick-up lines in history: “The reason for our success is that we possess none of the human traits of kindness, mercy, or pity! We are coldly scientific and ruthless! You’ll be one of us.”
The possibility that inhabitants of other planets speak English works to the advantage of the astronomers who are making these important observations. Their research requires generous federal funding, and the mood among politicians in Washington these days is sympathetic to the requirement that we all speak English. Presumably these politicians’ concerns extend beyond Miami and South Texas to nearby solar systems.
Meanwhile, the discovery of super-massive or sizzling-hot planets in nearby solar systems is interesting, but we are all waiting for a Mongo. When that happens, give me a call. There’s an old Flash Gordon fan here who has not forgotten his early infatuation with Princess Aura.
