Slashdot Mirror
Cassini Shatters Titan Theories
Dozix007 writes "The Herald reports: Cassini pierced
the haze around Titan, Saturn's biggest moon, revealing details
that have shattered theories about its composition. It has
atmosphere and soil similar to primordial Earth and may contain the
building blocks of life. Scientists believed bright patches
on its surface seen earlier were pure water ice. But the first infrared
images
taken by Cassini revealed water ice as dark patches because it is mixed
with material that may be organic, raining on to the surface."
It's interesting that we keep cutting NASA's budget, saying there's nothing possibly interesting out there. Then we look at a space probe and it says we may learn about the origins of life. To me, that seems to be incredibly important. Why are we not giving them more funding?
I think this brings up huge ethical questions. If we are right, and there are the building blocks of life down there, do we have any right to interfere with that process? Undoubtably we are going to do something while "studying" this that causes the process to go all wrong (or not happen at all) like a satellite hitting the surface and contaminating the moon, causing these building blocks to not form (flash backs of the last episode of ST:TNG).
Does anyone else find it interesting that in the original draft of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the craft is bound for one of the moons of Saturn as opposed to Europa as was portrayed in the movie. Now after some preliminary exploring Europa we find that Europa's a dud and the easy-bake life mix is in fact on Titan.
Here we go again with NASA concetrating on trying to find "life" on other planets. What ever happened to the science of simply exploring and learning about our solar system and how it formed instead of this quest of focusing on trying to find life on other planets. There is more to space exploration than finding life.
Hello Neighbor!
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
What type of organisms can sustain life under such low tempartures? What would be the mean temperature of Saturn's surrounding neighborhood? It seems that if organisms truly are found on Saturn, the space race is going to really pick up speed within the next few years.
Damn, we need "warp drives."
GroupShares Inc.
-------
artlu.net
I suggest we send our own organic matter down there and see what becomes of it. Ok everyone who is the head of a political office raise their hand! Now everyone working for these people raise your hand. Every who has your hand raised get on a rocket cause we're shipping you out! I know we are starting low but consider it even we grew from one celled organisms so what we can send isn't much lower is it? Well at least we'd get rid of a few problem individuals.
oh dear god! It's raining farts!
Actually I think the big question is the next question: "Why didn't live evolve like it did on Earth".
Suppose we find evidence of fossilized life on Mars, and that Mars was once a warm, wet world. What went wrong? Was it simply that Mars was colder, or is something more subtle going on?
On worlds where "life may once have been", we also have an excellent opportunity to examine worlds in many ways like Earth that failed to produce life. Mars, Venus, Titan... These could potentially be what Earth looks like millions of years from now. Exactly what nudges a world in that direction? Carbon Dioxide? Hydrocarbons in the air? Something else we don't even know about yet?
I believe that examining the chemosystems and environments of non-Earths is immensely valuable. And in my opinion, the knowledge gained far outweighs the (negligable) risk of using nuclear RTG for the trip, something we've all happily forgotten after Cassini passed Earth for the last time. If understanding Titan gives us a better knowledge of our own environment, we need to use this argument next time someone protests using an RTG on a launch vehicle.
If there's water, and carbon, and heat (hello molten core of Titan, I'm Saturn, I'll be your tidal gravity generator today), then there's probably life. This could be VERY much like the 2001 series, where isolated pockets of extremophiles lived in the sea under Europa while it was frozen.
If we bacteria living in 100+ C, H2S environments, or in liquid brine solutions at the bottom of the ocean, or in outer space (fungus on Mir), then there's no reason that they COULDN'T be living on Titan.
I wonder if Winston Niles Rumfoord lives there?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Can someone explain why NASA was so concerned about contaminating Europa that they smashed a spacecraft into Jupiter that could otherwise have lasted a lot longer, but where Titan is concerned no one seems to think about contamination?
It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye. Then it's fun and games without depth perception.
These certainly are not the first infrared images taken by Cassini, not even the first of Titan, which were taken in mid April.
It was the earlier images, earth-based images, and the errant idea that the dark areas were ethane oceans which convinced the Cassini-huygens team to choose this landing ellipse. Now that they know different, one wonders whether they'll modify the plan.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
for taking me to a place that sadly I will never be able to go. Growing up on sci-fi, Star Trek, and Space 1999, I dreampt of standing on Titan's shores. Now I know a bit more about what is really there. So, from one explorer born about 500 years too early, I just extend my thanks to the Cassini team. Congratulations, and keep the science coming!
...tizzyd
Java, naturally. Run anywhere, and all that... Of course, if their brains are completely different from the brain of a human, they might use perl...
I've been saying for years that the IRS needs to replace the "Contribution to the Presidential Campaign Fund" box on tax forms with a "Write in your desired donation to NASA" box.
If this were made possible I'm sure thousands of people would gladly donate money every year.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
There are more than 300 million in the states. If 1% donated, that would be 3 million. If the average was $10 each, that would be 30 Million. It would help
The real issue is that the current admin (and probably other ones) will fight this. They want total control of how money is spent.
We have a similar check-off here in colorado for a number of things as well as we have passed bills that says that the state is to put x dollars into education (we were once one of the tops, now in 7 years we have slid to a level == to Texas; Pretty bad). Now that Owens can not put the money where he wants to, he is upset and try to get the bill repealed, but the citizens are fighting him.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Damn it, people. An article gets posted that says scientists are "puzzled" about Titan, and then it goes on to offer bunch of speculation about what MIGHT be there (rivers, mountains, water), including that it "may contain the building blocks of life," and people here just go NUTS talking about what this is telling us about the origins of life on Earth?? Get a grip. I for one would have enjoyed a bit more (read: any) information about what the probe ACTUALLY found, because (IAA Scientist) maybe it might be interesting in its own right, apart from the "religious" furvor some people have about hoping to find life in outer space.
The probe can't tell the difference between mountains and rivers, and yet you want to believe it's found the "building blocks of life" --- what are "building blocks of life" to mean? The savvy science-journalist doesn't say, because even atoms (heck, even protons and electrons) are "building blocks of life". Think about it, if they found amino acids, they'd just say so. Get a grip, people.
Now we know that Mars is the location of NASA's top-secrtet film-studio. Every time those middle-managers at NASA want to pocket those government grants for themselves (or occasionally to show that the Americans are better than the Soviets), instead of spendiung billions on sending spacecraft out to deep-spcae, they just spend millions on sending spacecraft to Mars, take some photos, and Photoshop them to look like any other celestial body they chose. In fact, I even suspect that the Apollo Moon landings were filmed on Mars.