Life under a black sun
Tomáš Opatrný, Lukáš Richterek, Pavel Bakala
Life is dependent on the income of energy with low entropy and the disposal of energy with high entropy. On Earth, the low-entropy energy is provided by solar radiation and the high-entropy energy is disposed as infrared radiation emitted into the cold space. Here we turn the situation around and assume cosmic background radiation as the low-entropy source of energy for a planet orbiting a black hole into which the high-entropy energy is disposed. We estimate the power that can be produced by thermodynamic processes on such a planet, with a particular interest in planets orbiting a fast rotating Kerr black hole as in the science fiction movie Interstellar. We also briefly discuss a reverse Dyson sphere absorbing cosmic background radiation from the outside and dumping waste energy to a black hole inside…
Read more at http://arxiv.org/pdf/1601.02897v1.pdf
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