Astrophage

Item from Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

A single-celled organism that eats stars — humanity's extinction event and its only ticket to the stars, wrapped in the same microscopic package.

Also known as: Astrophage, The Astrophage

What They Know

• Single-celled organism that absorbs stellar energy and converts it to mass via neutrino pair production — perfect energy storage
• Attracted to infrared wavelengths at 4.26μm and 18.31μm (CO2 absorption lines) — uses these to navigate to breeding planets
• Lifecycle: feed at star → migrate via magnetic field lines → breed on CO2-rich planet (Venus/Adrian/Threeworld) → return to star
• Used as fuel for spin drives: energy density far exceeds any human-made fuel; Hail Mary carries ~20,906 kg
• Population growth causes progressive stellar dimming — 10-15% reduction in Sol output within 30 years without intervention
• Infects stars within an 8-light-year radius of the initial outbreak

Connections

• threatens — earth
• threatens — forty_eridani
• fuels — hail_mary
• fuels — blip_a
• breeds_on — venus
• breeds_on — adrian
• preyed_upon_by — taumoeba
• discovered_by — petrova

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