How can Dune Sandworms eat enough to sustain themselves and provide energy to move as fast as they do? And how can life even exists on Dune with no plants to produce oxygen?
Clearly, these worms are built different.
Last time we discussed how they can structurally exist, as large as they are, but that’s just the beginning. Remember: our goal as sci-fi readers is not to say why not, but to come with cool reasons for HOW YES?
In the books, Herbert states in two places:
"Worms were oxygen factories; fire burned wildly in their passage”.
And
“ A medium worm (about 200 meters long) discharged into the atmosphere as much oxygen as ten square kilometers of green-growing photosynthesis surface”
So worms make oxygen, but how?
Well, sand is mostly made of Silicon Dioxide. SiO2.
But chemically breaking up silicon dioxide is endothermic- it requires more energy than it releases.
We’ve developed a way to get oxygen from moon dust, using Molten regolith electrolysis (MRE), but that requires super high temperatures.
I see only one solution to all of this.
Sandworm stomachs are somehow nuclear reactors, fueled by sand–or spice? They then generate enough energy to break down sand, releasing the oxygen from the silicon, using the other bits to grow themselves, and the excess energy either fuels movement via crazy strong muscles or they poop out their waste like a jet engine that propels them through the sand.
Now that’s what i call spicey.
Caption
Maybe the spice actually contains some normally unstable compound found on the far end of the periodic table, produced by fusion in the bellies of worms and made stable through unknown processes? Unununuwormium?
#STEM #science #dune #dunemovie