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Enceladus "Sea" Mystery Deepens
Smivs writes "The BBC reports that an ocean may not be the source of the jets emanating from Saturn's moon Enceladus. Controversial research questions the moon's promise as a target in the search for life beyond Earth. A chemical analysis of Enceladus, led by University of Colorado planetary scientist Nick Schneider, failed to detect sodium, an element scientists say should be present in any body of water that has been in contact with rock for billions of years. Spectral analysis with the Keck Telescope found no sodium in the plumes or in the vapor in orbit around the moon. At stake is whether Saturn's moon could support alien life and is thus a worthy target for a NASA exploratory mission to detect it. Such a mission to Enceladus is one of four currently under review for further development."
solubilities are well know and tested for all common elements.
Gone!
Lake Michigan may be a freshwater lake, but it still contains salt. According to my internets, a cubic foot of Lake Michigan water contains about a sixth of an ounce of salt.
Who said anything about life needing sodium? The only real assumption going on is that life is more likely to occur in a liquid environment. Up until now, they signs have been that there was a liquid environment present, and as such it was a good place to look for life. Better than the alternatives at least. Now, the new research calls into question the existence of the large body of liquid that was thought to exist. So, if there is no liquid, the chances of life existing are lower and the reason for priority missions goes away.
A glacial lake is not the same as an ocean.
it's not sulfur, it's sodium and it's common enough in everything else that we've found in regard to rocks that sodium is a good bet for a relatively easy target for determining if there is indeed a liquid ocean under the surface. it's already suspected that ganymede has a liquid ocean under the surface with dissolved salts that cause the ocean to be conductive and conductive fluid interiors lend themselves to forming magnetic fields, thus it is also suspected that Enceladus has a similar ocean. Although in this case, the fact that Sodium wasn't detected doesn't fit the hypothesis that Enceladus has a liquid, saly ocean underneath.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
As a layperson here's what gets me.
The source of the plumes is "very, very pure water," Dr Schneider concluded, and proposed clean ice, melt water (ice that melts?) or clathrates - a crystal of water, carbon dioxide and ammonia - as alternative sources.A quick google search "freeze salt water" returns:
How do cold-blooded animals survive subfreezing water temperatures as low as 27.1oF without literally being shattered by ice crystals? Salt water with a salinity of 35 ppt (parts per thousand), the average salinity of the open ocean, freezes at 28.5oF. As sea water freezes, the salt becomes more concentrated in the remaining unfrozen water. This makes Antarctic water extremely salty, more so than most of the world's oceans causing it to freeze at a lower temperature.http://www.gma.org/surfing/antarctica/salt.html
Seems to me like he says he's looking at clean ice and ice in general will not contain salt. What am I missing?
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
A link to the electric universe nonesense posted by slashdot's #1 EU fanboy is about as informative as "The DaVinci Code", "State of Fear" or "The Panda's thumb".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Lets focus our space program on useful tasks such as orbital solar energy collection
;)
Lol. You do that, and tell me when you find a way to make it so that increasing your capital costs a hundredfold on every square meter of solar panels (by launching them into space), as well as your maintenance costs, in order to get ~3 times the power per square meter, and then lose a good chunk of your gain in beamed energy transmission, a profitable deal. While you're at it, build a perpetual motion machine.
and leave the fruitless search for extraterrestrial life to the hobbiests
Extraterrestrial life at least makes sense. We know it works; we have one positive datapoint. It's not much to go on, but at least it's something.
We should start dealing in those black-market beagles.
Indeed ! Some tests are done more often then others.
Solubility of sodium chloride (or calcium chloride) in water is commonly used to prevent it from freezing (application - cleaning sidewalks).
The mixture of salt and water freezes at -21 Celsius = 272K or sooner, depending on purity. When salt water freezes it separates the salt which is why Antartic ice is not salty.
From Wikipedia, the surface temperature of Enceladus is at most 145K, so it is likely that surface ice is pure and it is possible that the liquid water is kept liquid by tidal forces (water in motion freezes at lower temperature). One can even imagine how period crystallization and melting of water by tidal forces has separated out salt somehow.
That said, sodium is extremely easy to ionize. To see that put a few salt crystals into gas or alcohol flame - it will turn yellow from the small quantity of sodium atoms that evaporated from the crystals. Thus, if liquid water was in direct contact with rock it would contain trace amounts of sodium which, when launched into space with the jet, will provide pronounced yellow line.
What is possibly happening is that two ice sheets (pure H20) collide, melt ice with the pressure and spray the resulting water into space. TFA mentions two more possibilities - as well as a speculation that Sodium atoms could be frozen inside water crystals.
...and since the heat source is deep inside the moon it's not unlikely that the ice that escapes has made it way to the surface as steam, ie: the journey to the surface might act as a natural distillery as the water in the fissures repeatedly boils and freezes.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I've asked you similar questions, when replying to other comments by you, but you've chosen not to reply; I hope you reply this time. After all, to the extent you deign to describe the PhD students in Space Science and Plasma Physics (whether in university Departments of Electrical Engineering or not) as 'astrophysicists' (or not), it's a bit rich to say they 'refuse to consider the *possibility* that electricity in space does things of importance'. Would you be interested to read some of the papers by these folk, published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, which falsify your assertion? Even when the evidence is compelling, they refuse to take part in any serious investigation that the conventional theories may be seriously wrong. What compelling evidence?
And how would you suggest 'serious investigation' be done? This is another serious question - what methods, tools, techniques, analyses, etc do you feel should be brought to bear in a study of such so-called compelling evidence? There is a huge disconnect right now between the more over-zealous astrophysicists and reasonable, objective people. And you know this because
Or you're merely stating something you personally feel, but have no objective data worth anything to back it up?
But let's assume you have done the research - how did you decide which 'astrophysicists' are 'over-zealous'? and which 'people' are 'reasonable, objective'? They consider people like myself as spreading "misinformation". I can only speak for myself, but based on what I've read so far of your comments here in SD, I'd say you are ignorant, confused, and hypocritical.
Ignorant because of the so-called 'facts' you cite, those that I myself have investigated, you more often than not mis-state, mis-represent, or misunderstand them.
Confused because you seem to want people who read your comments to take them seriously, in a scientific sense, but almost in the same breath admit that there's no scientific basis for them, that you do not wish them to be investigated using such methods, and are unwilling or unable to answer very simple questions about them.
Hypocritical because, on the one hand, you insist that there's something going on in the heavens that should be investigated but isn't being so investigated; on the other hand, you baulk at even the idea that your pet 'EU Theory' should also be investigated, much less questioned or challenged.
1. The discoverer pitches the claim directly to the media.
Check
2. The discoverer says that a powerful establishment is trying to suppress his or her work.
Check
3. The scientific effect involved is always at the very limit of detection.
Check
4. Evidence for a discovery is anecdotal.
Check
5. The discoverer says a belief is credible because it has endured for centuries.
Check
6. The discoverer has worked in isolation.
Check
7. The discoverer must propose new laws of nature to explain an observation.
Check.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on