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I had an idea of making a bacterium use muons from cosmic rays for energy storage purposes.

Muons are heavier versions of electrons, but unlike electrons, they aren't very stable and last only for 2.2 µs before decaying into an electron and two types of neutrinos (most of the time). They are only able to get to planets because of time dilation caused by relativity. Once the muons decay, they transfer their remaining energy to the electron or the neutrinos. Then, the bacterium somehow gets the energy from the decay (I honestly have no idea how this is supposed to work and this is what I need help with).

Handwaved Stuff: Let's handwave how this bacterium formed: it doesn't matter and it doesn't seem likely it would form in the first place. It just did form somehow and uses muons to get energy and power its processes.

Question: So, what would be the most plausible way for this bacterium to extract energy from decaying muons (if it's plausible at all) and how would that method work? If it isn't possible, let me know, and tell me why.

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  • $\begingroup$ Muons from cosmic background radiation?? $\endgroup$
    – L.Dutch ♦
    Oct 10 at 16:16
  • $\begingroup$ Yes, muons from cosmic background radiation. $\endgroup$
    – Neil Iyer
    Oct 10 at 16:18
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    $\begingroup$ CBR is electromagnetic radiation dating to a tad more than the 2 microsecond yourself state as lifetime of a muon $\endgroup$
    – L.Dutch ♦
    Oct 10 at 16:20
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    $\begingroup$ @NeilIyer You’re confusing cosmic rays and microwave background radiation. They’re quite different, and cosmic rays are the source of muons (when naturally occurring on the Earth). $\endgroup$
    – Mike Scott
    Oct 10 at 17:04
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    $\begingroup$ @thegreatemu But it’s time dilation that keeps them intact for long enough to get from where they’re created in the upper atmosphere to the surface of the Earth. $\endgroup$
    – Mike Scott
    Oct 11 at 17:35

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I’m afraid there’s no plausible way. There aren’t enough muons in the environment for bacteria to use them. Only about 150 muons reach a square metre of the Earth’s surface per second. Which means that any individual bacterium with an area of around a trillionth of a square metre will encounter a muon about once every 200 years. You can tell that muons can’t deliver much energy to bacteria, because if they did then they’d deliver more energy to the cells of our bodies, which are larger than bacteria, and rip them apart.

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    $\begingroup$ I think "rip them apart" is a bit much. Sunlight routinely delivers energy to photosynthesizing cells, yet doesn't "rip us apart". $\endgroup$
    – kutschkem
    Oct 11 at 9:56
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    $\begingroup$ Sunlight delivers energy that can be used for photosynthesis, but it also delivers energy (via ultraviolet photons) that can kill a cell or turn it cancerous. Muon decay produces many orders of magnitude more energy than a mere UV photon. $\endgroup$
    – jeffB
    Oct 11 at 15:30
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    $\begingroup$ a more sensible question would be "could bacteria survive on energy from radioactive decay?" The energy mechanism is the same as the question (high-ish energy electrons and maybe alphas and x-rays) but you can actually gather a useful amount o f it $\endgroup$
    – thegreatemu
    Oct 11 at 17:20
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At least on Earth, the source of muons is the upper atmosphere where high energy particles from space interact with whatever they find in the said atmosphere.

Quite a minor part of this enery gets into muons, meaning that having enough muons to sustain life will imply quickly losing atmosphere.

This also would mean that impressively energetic processes hapen nearby (in the space sense) and having a solid planet there is both of little probability and in a short timespan.

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