Cassini Could Find Signs of Life on Enceladus

New Scientist reviews the possibility that the Cassini probe might be repurposed to look for signs of life on Saturn's enigmatic moon Enceladus. "[Enceladus' water vapor] plume's origin is still being debated, but some models suggest the moon holds an ocean of liquid water beneath its surface. This ocean could be a potential habitat for extraterrestrial life. ... Though the probe was never designed to look for life, it could do so by studying organic chemicals such as methane in the plume, the team says."

Comments

Sounds nice but....

[blackholepcs]

The only problem with stories like this is that we either don't actually do it, or we DO do it and get results that tell us nothing useful (as far as the question of E.T. life). Why can't they just :

1. Design and build rover/robot/probe whose sole task is to find and identify life on another planet/moon/whatever.
2. Deploy said rover/robot/probe.
3. Get definitive answer - Yes there is/yes there was actual life here, or No there isn't/no there wasn't actual life here.
4. Rinse and repeat.

Seriously, why is that so hard?

Re:Sounds nice but....

[argent]

How do you know when you've found life?

How do you distinguish between life and unusual chemical reactions?

Sure, if a gnarled humanoid pops up and waves a glowing finger at you, you've found life, but what happens if you just find a brown stain that seems to be producing oxygen? Is it alive or a permanganate salt?

Extra-terrestrials living in the oceans

[mfh]

Extra-terrestrials will taste good with some fava beans, and a nice Chianti.

Re:Just imagine what could be there

[Ethanol-fueled]

Cells? Hell, I'd be happy with the discovery of precursors to amino acids and proteins. we have a lot to learn about how environments effect change as well as which envronments can and cannot spawn life.

When people hypothesize about life forming on earth, they mention catalysts such as lightning strikes or volcanoes jump-starting chemical reactions. Not a far stretch of imagination given the thermophilic and cryophilic bacteria here on earth. Unfortunately, I don't think we should expect to find anything profound until we can load ourselves into a rocket, go there ourselves, and hope that we can return and analyze our samples without contaminating them.

Re:Just imagine what could be there

[Gat0r30y]

The problem here is that right now we only have the one data point for the formation of life (our lonely blue marble). So we really haven't got a good idea of what is suitable for the formation of life, and so far our approach has been to assume that it must be pretty darn close to what we have here.

Re:Laughed at in college

[Tablizer]

I wrote a paper in a college astronomy course where I speculated that Enceladus might have life given the water there. I was given a lower grade because of it. Vindication [of the idea] is sweet.

The founder of Federal Express allegedly got a "C" for the company's idea outlined in an economics project.
     

Re:Just imagine what could be there

[MightyMartian]

It's difficult to say whether it's improbable or not. We know that some pretty damned neat chemistry can take place where you have liquid water, complex organic compounds and a good source of energy. There are a number of bodies in the solar system that now appear to have at least the water and energy, and finding amino acids and other organic compounds in cometary bodies is a pretty good indicator that places like Enceladus and Europa probably have their fair share as well. The real difficulty is these worlds have really thick layers of ice, so getting a sample of what's in the oceans beneath would be a trick.