When you go outside you are in the same room as the sun
This artwork imagines what life would look like if it evolved inside and on the surface of the Sun. Using the laws of convergent evolution each of these organisms is imagined based on what traits they would need to evolve to thrive in their specific environments. Each organism inhabits a separate layer of the sun and predates upon the organisms that reside on the layer below it. For the hierarchy of organisms I took inspiration from Trophic Levels on earth. On earth food chains are organised into trophic levels, it typically goes.
Base Producer (Plant) -> Herbivore -> Small Carnivore -> Apex Predator.
Lettuce -> Catterpillar -> Mouse -> Owl
Base Producer - The Core
In the center of the Sun, there are the base producers; they convert the raw fusion energy of the Sun’s core into biomass. Unlike on Earth, where the Sun’s energy comes from the sky, in the Sun’s core, energy is everywhere. To best absorb this energy, the base producer has evolved to have the most exposed surface area possible. It has evolved in the shape of a Menger's Sponge. A Menger’s Sponge is a 3D fractal (an example can be seen below of the different levels of this fractal: L1, L2, L3, ...). If the Menger’s Sponge is realized infinitely, L∞, what will be achieved is an object with infinite surface area and zero volume. A small cell (L1) of the base producer begins its journey of life in the deep core, harvesting as much energy as it can. When it has sucked up enough energy, it transforms itself up the ladder to an L2 cell. This transformation allows the cell to absorb more energy, but it also reduces its volume, so it begins slowly rising out of the deep core towards the outer edge. It then goes through a second transformation to an L3 cell and rises a bit more. When it is an L3 cell, it gets too turgid with the energy it has accumulated, but it doesn't have the physical capabilities to change into an L4 cell, so it begins to bud a small L1 cell on its side. Just like yeast cells on Earth. After this budding is completed, the small dense L1 cell sinks to the deep core to begin its life, and the large dense L3 cell floats higher and higher to the edge of the core.
Herbivore - The Radiative Zone
The Herbivore resides in the mysterious radiative zone of the Sun, where packets of energy meander randomly up, down, left, right, forwards, and backwards. To feed the Herbivore predates upon the base producer cells in the core. The density of the core is too great for the Herbivore to enter with its whole body, so it has evolved a special feeding arm that it lowers to dredge up plant cells from the upper core. To locomote itself around the radiative zone the Herbivore has evolved furrows in its transport arm that lock into the flowing rivers of energy that pulse through this layer. Within these furrows are magnetosomes. These are specific cells that have their own magnetic field, which allows the animal to ride along these energy rails, kind of like the Large Hadron Collider, but instead of it accelerating the particles, the particles accelerate it. As the energy does not follow any rule of direction within this layer, it has an equal chance of flowing towards the outside of the Sun as it does of flowing back towards the core. Energy takes more than 170,000 years to move through this layer.
As the Herbivore relies on the random passage of these energy packets, its movements too are random.
It has evolved the ability to go an extremely long time without eating. As the direction of these tracks is random, the animal is sometimes transported to the edge of its layer of the Sun.
Carnivore - The Convective Zone
Between the Radiative Zone of the Herbivore and the Convective Zone of the Carnivore lies the Tachocline. The Tachocline is a band of massive directional change. The Radiative Zone exists as a discrete collection of energy packets, and when these collide with the tumultuous churning of the Convective Zone, a devastating shearing effect is created. This rapid change in the direction of material is thought to create the Sun’s entire magnetic field.
The Carnivore has evolved two features to combat this barrier. First, it has no hard tissues on its body; instead of bones, it has hydraulic tubes that fill and empty with fluid, like a spider’s leg. With this feature, the animal can be limp but also firm when needed. This is necessary when the animal pierces the Tachocline, so it doesn’t get mangled by the sharp shearing forces.
To pierce the Tachocline, the Carnivore travels up and down the pounding waterfalls of convection that permeate this layer. It flares its umbrella-like body to travel up the convection cell, and on its way down, it folds its body in tight to plunge and pierce through the Tachocline and enter the Radiative Zone. While there, it latches onto an energy pathway and inflates itself to suck up a poor Herbivore. This act of inflating itself also reduces its density, allowing it to float back up to the Convective Zone.
Apex Predator - The Photosphere
Upon reaching the top of the Convection Cell, that is when the Carnivore is in most danger. The Apex Predator skates on the surface of the Sun, like a pond skater. Utilizing the change of matter—gas to vacuum—it uses this outward pressure to glide across the Sun’s surface, hunting for prey. The top half of its body is black to blend into the blackness of space, so its prey doesn’t see it stalking the cells until it’s too late. The animal has four eye stalks: two upper ones to scan the horizon for prey and two lower ones to accurately pin its prey once it finds it. To locomote itself, it uses its hard positioning appendages and tactfully positions them into the outward push of the bubble-like cells.
