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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."
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?
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Extra-terrestrials will taste good with some fava beans, and a nice Chianti.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
I am sure their Enceladus are teaming with bacteria from the unwashed hands of the employees who prepare them.
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.
It may NOT find life there...
Wow, the things that happen in this crazy solar system.
NO SIG
Precursors? They've already determined that complete amino acids can be found on carbonaceous asteroids. It's actually *easy* to make amino acids; the mystery is how amino and nucleic acids came together to form what we call life. My guess is given the right environment (liquid water, ingredients, and a source of energy) and enough time 'life' forms under a variety of other variables.
Just a few days ago, Cassini buzzed close by Enceladus and took high-res shots of the fissures where the geysers originate. Earlier this month during an even closer pass, the spacecraft took direct samples of the plume.
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I think that the summary (and to a lesser extent, the story) only accurate if you don't think that Cassini is already looking for signs of life on Enceladus. In fact, Enceladus has become (with Titan) one of the most important mission objectives for Cassini. As the story points out, the kind of data that would help address the possibility of life has already been collected (and will no doubt continue to be collected).
In other words, this isn't repurposing, it's a story about what's already being done.
With all the weird things we find on Earth, I wonder what could be in that water?
Don't drink it.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
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.
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There is a lot of heat that gets created from tidal action. The gas giants have such intense gravity that it warps the surface of the moons as they rotate around the planet. This shifting of the moon creates a lot of heat. Enough to have liquid water? Who knows.
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That's what you get for thinking in college.
The founder of Federal Express allegedly got a "C" for the company's idea outlined in an economics project.
Table-ized A.I.
The original story is at CICLOPS. (I spent all day Saturday helping get that stuff together.)
Not to totally go in the face of your post, but to counter your "massive improbability" comment. Yes, it's totally a massive improbability that life starts easily. However, what life has on it's side is TIME. Enceladus has been happily circling it's planet for millions of years. Sure, it's improbably that life was created there in the first minute. It's also improbably that just the right mix of ingredients was there the next minute - but the odds get better and better with every following minute that the right bunch of ingredients came along and life popped into existence from the precursors that were in the water. Given millions and millions of years, I would say that the chances don't look like a massive improbability, but more along the lines of a massive probability that at some point the right mix of things came together and made life of some sort. I would go so far as to say that I think it would be a massive improbability that the universe isn't simply teeming with life of all sorts.
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No, because mainstream scientists believe that his speculation has enough merit that they're willing to commit time and money to find out if it's correct.
That is, I took his post to mean that he was vindicated in the sense that he was making a valid line of inquiry, rather than making up crackpot theories that deserve to be modded down by a teacher.
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.
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