Slashdot Mirror
Cassini 'Tastes' Organic Material at Enceladus
Riding with Robots writes "As previously reported, the robotic spacecraft Cassini recently flew through the mysterious geyser plumes at Saturn's icy moon Enceladus. Today, NASA released the preliminary results of the flyby, including some intriguing findings, such as organic materials 20 times denser than expected and relatively high temperatures along the fissures where the geysers emanate. 'These spectacular new data will really help us understand what powers the geysers. The surprisingly high temperatures make it more likely that there's liquid water not far below the surface,' said one mission scientist."
I thought the "tasting" was a bust...
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/14/1535236
What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
If it gives it back after only 5 days does it get a refund?
Are those Earth days, Saturn days, or Enceladusian days?
Does someone want to tell me what definition of "organic" they are using, which can be found in comets and moon geysers?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
> "Enceladus' brew is like carbonated water with an essence of natural gas," said Waite.
Gawd, i knew it. The primordial hell-brew of the universe is Mountain Dew.
That which does not kill us makes us... st
"its life Jim but not as we know it"
I, for one, welcome our gourmet space probe overlords.
Whether they find life there or not, I think Jupiter should be considered an enemy planet
if they spin it the right way, that they literally found moons made of petrochemicals in the outer solar system their budget would triple overnight ;)
I'm wondering if that, in fact, happened - that there was one almighty pulverization and the modern Enceladus is the result of the lighter material condensing around a surviving fragment of sufficient size to act as a nucleus. In that case, though, there should be another moon formed from the heavier material condensing around another fragment, showing an abnormally high density, in much the same way that the Earth and its moon unevenly divide the material of the original planet.
So far, I've not seen anything that suggests that is the case, but since so little is actually known, I guess it's well within the realms of possible at this point.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Doesn't the word organic mean something living (or at one point was living)? Or are we talking about organic compounds?
I hereby propose that Enceladus be renamed Tubgirlus in light of this discovery.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Enchiladas
Dear Will, the plums were poisoned. -- Cheese Club
you get your significant other to taste a little organic matter right here on Earth.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
where it just means "containing carbon". This is very confusing for the average USA Today reader who thinks that organic == life.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Organic material, eh... We should seed the planet with microbes, come back in a million years and see what evolves there. Would that prove evolution or the god theory?
chicken.
Evidently the engine of the chariot of the god Saturn failed and now he cannot get to Enceladus to refuel.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
And after Cassini tasted Enchiladas, it burped and asked for microseconds.
No, what they mean is that no man made pesticides have been used on the moon.
I'm a little wary of letting passing spacecraft come by and "taste" the atmospheres of our moons. Once these evil robot satellites get a taste of organic material they're going to want more, more, more... and when they're finished devouring the atmospheres of their home worlds in the outer solar system they'll come back to Earth to sap our precious bodily fluids!
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20080316&mode=classic
When you sympathize with stupidity, you start thinking like an idiot.
It is the variety of bonds carbon can form that make it such an interesting molecule, that makes organic chemistry such an enormous branch of chemistry (dealing with chemical properties of a single element!), and that, as some have claimed, make life possible (or a stronger claim: probable). Sorry I can't find the quote at the moment; I think it was quoted in Sagan & Shklovsky's "Intelligent Life In The Universe", something like "It is the versatility of the carbon atom that makes life possible in this universe." Then we figured out how to synthesize a lot of these chemicals and now it pretty much means contains carbon... I think you're referring to artificial hydrocarbons. In any case, the artificial synthesis of organic compounds had no bearing on the terminology. There are *way* more organic compounds than we have even named. They are common in stellar nebulae. The Miller-Urey experiment produced (IIRC) several novel as well as several familiar organic compounds. We haven't studied all the organic compounds to which we have access, and we don't have access to all the organic compounds we've observed (interstellar distances and such...). There are organic compounds we know only through spectroscopy. It is true that hydrocarbons are extremely common in the universe, but they are only a subset of organic compounds which are necessarily even more widespread. water is a vital component of life as we know it and is almost always associated with organic compounds at least in vivo although it too is not considered organic because it doesn't contain carbon Red herring or straw man. Of course water is inorganic; as you said, it contains no carbon! Nobody ever claimed it was or should be called "organic". it does however contain hydrogen and oxygen which are very common in organic compounds. More of the same. Hydrogen is common in the universe, as are carbon and oxygen ("common" once we get bored with ~3/4 hydrogen, ~1/4 helium, ~0% everythingofinterest). Hydrocarbons and oxides (including the very CO and CO2 mentioned earlier) are also common.
So yeah, carbon, then hydrogen and oxygen are probably the most useful elements for life (and for "life as we know it", the most important). But there are plenty of organic compounds that are (as far as we know) entirely unassociated with known extant biology. "Bio-organic" is a very small subset of "organic", and "biological" is not strictly a subset of "organic" because inorganic compounds (such as water and various salts) are vital to life as we know it.
Homer Simpson: Mmmmm, encheladus.