Kordylewski Dust Clouds: Could They Be Cosmic “Superbrains”?

Abstract

Recent astronomical observations combined with dynamical simulations have led to a possible confirmation of the existence of the much disputed stable dust clouds (Kordylewski Dust Clouds) at the Lagrange libration points of the Earth-Moon system. The new data leads to an estimate of the size of the cloud at L5 as well as of the average radii of the scattering/polarizing dust particles in the cloud’s interior. The diameter of the cloud is somewhat less than 3 times the Earth’s diameter, and the average grain radius is estimated at ~ 3  10-5cm, consistent with bacterial-type cells, with a mean separation of less than 1 cm. Such grains, most likely elongated on the average (rod-like bacteria), and photoelectrically charged to a few eV, would acquire a spin through collisions with gas atoms and thus could act as emitters and absorbers of longwave electromagnetic radiation. We speculate that the entire Kordylewski Dust Cloud comprised of such particles has the potential to acquire electromagnetic connectivity with an information storage/processing capacity akin to a form of intelligence.