The movie version of Dune (the one with Sting) was on the other day and a question occured to me. How could a planet like Arakis, a planet with no precipitation whatsoever, maintain an oxygen atmoshere? Oxygen is a very reactive element and it only exists on earth because we have a lot of plant life pumping it out via photosynthesis. Yet Arakis is described as having virtually no water and clearly not much vegetation. So, where does the oxygen come from?
From memory there is water, but it is tied up in an early vector of the worms. This complex subterranean ecology is also responsible for maintaining the oxygen levels.
Some words of wisdom from the theme song to Mystery Science Theater come to mind: ~o If you're wonderin' how they eat and breathe and other science facts Just repeat to yourself "It's just a show, I should really just relax." Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
You also have to remember that there was plenty of water underground...as the Fremen showed Paul when he became one of them. And after Paul realized he was the right hand of God, he made it rain on Arrakis. That was a bitchin' movie though. Sting, with his performance, blew it right out of the water.
The water is all under the ground thanks to the early stage of the sandworm's life cycle (sand trout), but I'm not sure if the sand trout are supposed to actually be carrying out anything like photosynthesis or not. It's possible that the planet's oxygen is indeed out of equilibrium, and that in a few million years it wouldn't be habitable.
There's also hardly anything living there to consume the oxygen, so even if it isn't being regenerated the oxygen that was already present when the planet turned to a desert could still potentially last a very very long time.
But don't forget that it's not just living organisms that consume oxygen. It's very reactive. Metal "rusts" or oxydizes which uses up oxygen, for instance.
Most likely: Dune existed as a rainforest planet in its long past time, and now even though all vegetation is gone, the oxygen remains, and fullfilled by the some oxygen producing bacteria in the mountains/dunes. Other possibilities: When spice is excavated it releases oxygen. Oxygen is not needed...spice is all that is needed now. Oxygen is pumped into atmosphere of Dune for the price of spice, to allow the worms to exist and produce spice oncemore Everyone has a rebreather in their system...not human...carbon dioxide is heated to 2000C and oxygen is recycled in the system, with heat dissipating who knows where =p lol. Plasma farts. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Yeah, but assuming the planet is relatively old and geologically stable, anything on the surface that would have reacted with oxygen will have done so already. When lifeforms on earth started producing oxygen there was some long period of time (millions of years, but I don't recall the exact number off hand) where oxygen didn't build up in the atmosphere because it was reacting with planetary materials, but when eventually everything that was going to react with the oxygen had done so, oxygen levels skyrocketed and all sorts of stuff went extinct from oxygen poisoning..
I have now read the entire Dune sireis and it is later explaned that indeed the sand worms do produce the oxygen.
The worms produce large quantities of oxygen as part of their lifecycle and in the creation of spice. That's why they smell large amounts of ozone (in the books) when they are near worms. ~String
