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- The desert planet Arrakis in “Dune: Part Two” has extreme temperatures and little water.
- Surviving on such a planet would require technology and adaptability.
- Three experts explain what it would be like to live on the planet Dune.
In a distant star system, 20,000 years in the future, a scorching hot planet with arid deserts and little water is home to blue-eyed semi-nomadic inhabitants called Fremen.
Frank Herbert first described this harsh, fictional world of Arrakis in his 1965 novel “Dune,” which was recently adapted into a film trilogy. The second installment of the trilogy, “Dune: Part Two,” debuted in U.S. theaters on Friday.
The film was shot in the deserts outside Abu Dhabi, but we wondered what it would take to survive on a real-life Arrakis.
While it would require some ingenuity and technology, it wouldn’t be impossible, according to the scientists we spoke to.
“There are populations that have lived for centuries and even millennia in deserts,” Seth Collings Hawkins, a natural medicine specialist at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, told Business Insider.
What the planet Dune would look like in real life
“There are many, many factors that make the Earth habitable for humans,” Amy J. Kreykes, an expert in aerospace medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch, told BI.
That includes everything from the atmosphere to distance from the sun to available water.
“Everything is exceptionally perfect,” he said, “and really any deviation from that could make other environments hostile to humans.”
The planet Arrakis from Dune has huge sandworms, a drug known as spice that helps with interstellar travel, and two moons. However, it is not totally different from Earth.
When “Dune: Part One” premiered in 2021, University of Bristol meteorologist Alexander Farnsworth and several other scientists used a weather forecast. climate model to simulate the conditions on Arrakis.
They entered everything they could find The dune encyclopedia about the geographical characteristics, atmosphere and astronomy of the planet.
There were some places where the team’s model differed from the book’s descriptions, like the climate at the planet’s poles and tropics, for example.
Overall, though, Farnsworth said he was impressed by the world Herbert created.
“I think what surprised me most overall was how accurate Frank Herbert was in imagining a desert world without having a background in physics or a supercomputer to do any kind of calculation,” he said.
“You must have done an enormous amount of research on the various components of the Earth system to understand how such a world could work,” he added. In fact, Herbert saying He spent six years researching the book.
Based on their calculations, Farnsworth and the other researchers discovered that living on Arrakis would be possible, although probably not as pleasant.
Survive lack of water
The planet Arrakis lacks oceans, lakes or even small puddles on its surface. Needless to say, this is bad news for humans.
“There’s a rule of three,” Hawkins said. The human body can go about three minutes without oxygen, about three days without water, and about three weeks without food. “This would be the point where his body would start to decompose,” he said.
To survive the dry conditions in Dune, the fictional Fremen wear what are called stillsuits, which capture body perspiration and other bodily fluids and convert them into drinking water.
However, this concept is not completely science fiction.
Hawkins called space the “most water-deficient environment,” which is why bathrooms on the International Space Station convert nearly 85% of astronauts’ urine into drinking water.
Recovering that humidity is essential in environments where there is no external source available. However, As crucial as water is, on Arrakis temperature is the true cause of death.
“You’d probably get heat stroke before dying of dehydration,” Hawkins said.
Survive extreme temperatures
Unlike the book, Farnsworth’s scientific model of a real-life Arrakis found that the tropics were more hospitable than the polar regions because temperatures would be milder year-round.
At the poles, temperatures ranged from 158 degrees Fahrenheit in summer to -76 degrees Fahrenheit in winter. Meanwhile, temperatures in the tropics would range between 56 and 113 degrees.
“So (at the poles) it is not only heat stress but also cold stress that living things would have to face,” on a real-life Arrakis, he said.
Therefore, if you had the choice, you would want to live near the equator on Arrakis.
“The most feared consequence of being in that environment is heat stroke, which literally cooks the brain,” Hawkins said. The body temperature would rise to 106 or 107 degrees Fahrenheit, higher than a fever.
“You just wouldn’t travel during the day,” he said. Everyone would find shelter until the temperatures began to drop at night. In the event that you had to venture out during the day, you would need something similar to a stillsuit.
“It really seems paradoxical (covering up), but we now know that a big part of the problem is radiation and exposure to the sun’s heat,” Hawkins said.
Certain fabrics are both breathable and good at reflecting heat. Integrating heat-conducting materials into clothing can help, but some type of internal fan or air conditioning is still needed, Hawkins said.
“With technology, we can add tools that help prolong our time in the sun or in hot environments with fewer negative effects,” Hawkins said.
Surviving the atmosphere
When it comes to the composition of the atmosphere, “humans are very specific in their needs,” Kreykes said.
The atmosphere of Arrakis is similar to that of Earth. It has a similar pressure, slightly less nitrogen (74.32% compared to about 78% on our planet), and a little more oxygen (23.58% compared to 21% on Earth).
Despite the similarities, humans may still have an adjustment period.
“Any time you start to alter the atmosphere and change those parameters, it has the potential to have significant effects on humans,” Kreykes said. “Any deviation would have to be analyzed very, very closely to determine habitability for humans.”
Arrakis also has slightly less carbon dioxide than Earth, which could affect plant growth. It would be another challenge on top of the limited water sources.
A glimpse of the Earth of the future?
While learning to tame giant sandworms It’s a problem that Earth will hopefully never have to face, some parts of our planet aren’t all that different from Arrakis.
For example, the Sonoran Desert along the border between Mexico and the United States. recently It reached 177 degrees Fahrenheit, one of the highest surface temperatures ever recorded.
Arizona, New Mexico and California have faced droughts or water shortages in recent years.
As the Earth continues to warm due to climate change, excessive heat and water shortages will continue to affect not only humans but also plants and animals around the world.
One of the reasons for the popularity of “Dune” and similar speculative fiction, Hawkins said, is that we can see elements of our own future in it, “and I think this story has that message for us.”