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Cassini Finds Evidence of Water
CheshireCatCO writes "Scientists working on the Cassini Mission think that they have found compelling evidence for the existence of liquid water at the south pole of the moon Enceladus. In addition to the obvious puzzles relating to how temperatures can be held high enough for liquid water, the presence of water, as well as the detection of organic molecules, opens up the possibility for life at Enceladus's south polar region. The findings are to appear in the 10 March issue of the journal, Science"
2. Bottle the icy-cold water
3. Ship bottles to Earth
4. Sell "Enceladus Springs" at outrageous prices
5. (Need I say more?)
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Do they know that it's Water as in H2O or simply a liquidy viscuous substance that shoots from a small opening at the tip of the moon?
Did you all purposely do this?
The practicality of sending a probe to the surface of a far-flung moon for remote experimentation or return payload for terrestrial experimentation aside, the worry with such a procedure would be contamination. The Galileo Spacecraft was plowed into Jupiter's atmosphere to prevent any earth-bound contaminants from entering Europa, another planetoid that's on the short list of places that are likely to be able to support life. Some might see it as a grand irony if our experiment to find out if there's life on Enceladus, only to find that earth-bound microorganisms take seed there and multiply. It's an entirely different irony if the probe ends up being toxic to the indigenous life.
So, do we sit back, millions of miles away, speculating as to whether life exists there, or endanger the life we seek to discover by "getting a closer look" to see if it exists? Quite a conundrum, isn't it?
1) Suggest a possible discovery of liquid water out there
2) Make allusion to possibility of life emerging there
3) ???
4) Grant Funding!
I'm as much a fan of discovery as the next scientifically minded person, but this has become a little tired in recent years. Every time a possible discovery of liquid water creeps up, the potential for life always follows in the very next paragraph if not the next sentence. One would wonder what would happen if we found a vast reservoir of liquid water but no life in it. I imagine some segment of astrobiology would be so incredulous as to insist on probing it until an earth born microbe manages to survive the trip and contaminate the discovery.
When I was first reading this I thought "Wow, wouldn't it be interesting to figure out how liquid water could have existed there." Then came the inevitable "hey, maybe there's life there!" I just gave up. The conditions for liquid water are remarkable enough, do we need to include the outrageously small probability of life developing before we've looked at the more answerable questions like "where's the heat coming from?"
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
The editors changed my story link. My original submission had http://www.ciclops.org/ which has not only the press-release but several supporting images which might be of interested. Granted, our server is feeling the load pretty badly at the moment, but that'll probably ease up in a little while.
Cassini was launched in 1997 and entered Saturn's orbit on July 1, 2004. On December 25, 2004 the probe separated from the orbiter and probe reached Saturn's moon Titan on January 14, 2005
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cassini-Huygens
Firstly, sending a self-contained labratory to do experiments there on the moon's surface is sending a probe to the surface of a far-flung moon for remote experimentation, which was the first option mentioned in the snippet you quoted.
Also, note that this in no way removes the chance of contamination, it probably increases the chance. Even though these probes are assembled in clean rooms and every attempt is made NOT to contaminate the probe prior to flight, it's impossible to make sure that the probe is 100% free of earthborn life. Airborne viruses might get caught inside the probe, and could wreak havoc on the alien biology, for instance. Other posts here illustrate the problems of microorganisms, but the problem isn't necessarily that our microbes could taint their microbes; the very probe itself could very well contaminate the moon on its own. Remember, the probe very likely would NOT be chemically inert; it could poison the water that it touches. A probe sitting on the surface of a planet for all eternity will degrade and erode. Obviously this is purely hypothetical, but imagine that part of this probe was lead. If a chunk of lead fell into our drinking water, we'd suffer consequences and eventually succumb to lead poisoning. Lead is poisonous to us to some degree, and we can't be overexposed to it. Well, what is poisonous to extraterrestial life that we're investigating? How do we make sure that there's nothing we leave on that planet that damages the ecosystem?
Alternatively, let's assume that we can send a probe which is totally inert and nonthreatening to the moon's environment. We have the possibility of creating something akin to a artificial reef, as life grows around the probe and becomes dependent on it. Are we trying to seed life, encourage life, or study life? Where do we cross the line between letting life grow as it may and interfering with its evolution?