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Cassini Spots Geysers On Saturn's Moon Enceladus
An anonymous reader writes "Huge geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus may be fed by a salty sea below its surface, boosting the odds of extraterrestrial life in our own Solar System."
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Moving there, less taxes to pay
The geysers are old news. The new news is that Cassini has detected SALTS in Saturn's rings, pointing to a possible salty ocean under the icy surface of Enceladus.
One simple rule for its versus it's
We know what these planets consist of. We know of some pretty crazy bacteria here on earth. Why not shoot a rocket full of random bacteria that can survive our most extreme conditions to places like these?
If I recall correctly NASA has always been super careful about bacteria on space vehicles. Why don't we just infect everything and kick start this whole ET thing ourselves.
My understanding is that the major thing of interest is that there is _salt water_ on this moon. salt usually comes from rocks and to get it into water pretty much requires _liquid_ water, therefore the possibility of a life sustaining habitat. the geysers indicate is its possible that it has a liquid core, though i could be mistaken on that part.
i wage a holy war against the apostrophe.
It means that if we find some kind of intelligent shrimp on Enceladus we will be able to eat them without adding salt.
but isn't it more amazing there is salt there then the possibility of water?
*Likely
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
...the odds of extraterrestrial life in our own Solar System.
There is only one Solar System in the entire galaxy. This is because the name the star that Earth orbits is "Sol", hence the Solal System. There are other stellar systems (I think that's the right phrase) out there, but only one Solar System.
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
...that's where I get all my planetary science news! not. also. also. Why do people do this? This is the internet, not your local morning paper. You can go wherever you want to get this information. WHY NOT GO DIRECTLY TO THE SOURCE!?
- "Hear that?! The percolations are imminent! Cease your ingress!"
"Huge geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus may be fed by a salty sea below its surface, boosting the odds of extraterrestrial life in our own Solar System."
That's what SHE said!!!
Since the presence of geysers doesn't increase the likelihood of life, which would require a much more complex set of conditions and events to occur.
You might as well write "Iron detected on Enceladus, increasing the likelihood of Cadillac Dealerships."
Yes, it's boosting the odds from 1 in 800 kazillion to 1 in 799.999999999 kazillion.
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/24/enceladus-does-and-does-not-have-a-global-ocean/
Taco, you sensacionalist twat !
Looking at the size of those things makes me think a sample return will be pretty easy; we won't need a plan for leaving the surface, just good timing getting into the hole.
Did anyone else read that as Moon Enchiladas?
Mmmm.. Moon enchiladas...
Life -- loathe it or hate it, you can't ignore it.
Don't talk to ME about life!
Free Martian Whores!
From TFA, "Saturn moon may contain life". And I thought slashdot used sensationalist headlines! This amounts to slightly more evidence that Enceladus may be capable of supporting life, no evidence of the existence of life at all. Given the extreme conditions that bacteria have already been found under, there are LOTS of extraterrestrial objects capable of supporting life. Get back to me when Cassini captures a photo of a penguin waving...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Ok, so let's suppose life, in some primitive form, maybe even up to the level of crustaceans are found in these oceans. The first-non-Earth life, and quite exciting, sure.
I'm unsure how this challenges the religious life-origin stories around the world. Any one wants to take a stab at predicting the reactions from the traditional Earth-centric worldviews?
Geysers are turning out to be common features of the moons of Jovian planets. Tidal forces experienced by moons orbiting these planets are high. Io (orbiting Jupiter) has large, frequent volcanic geysers as well.
This is a great opportunity for a sample return mission. If Enceladus does host any microbiology it should be present in at least trace amounts in the water being ejected in space. Seems like it would be comparatively easy (although slow) to collect orbiting ice particles for return and analysis.
Cross pollination of extremophiles on planets and moons orbiting yellow dwarfs like our sun is inevitable; the system is too small to provide isolation. There is no need to take an extreme position on the possibility of "ruining" alien habits; the solar system has already exposed whatever exists. The most likely result of any discovery of alien lifeforms in our solar system is a distant relation to something already present on Earth.
The salts and possibility of organic compounds in the geyser ejecta is old news. This was the cover story on Scientific American from the issue four months ago. And the scientific journal Nature published it even before that. I guess the internet doesn't always move faster than print.
About 50 Martian meteors have been discovered so- mostly on Antarctica glaciers. Thats probably a tiny fraction of thousands upon thousands to have rained upon the Earth. Couple this with discoveries that bacteria apparently have lived inside of rock deep in the Earth for tens of millions of year and you have a mechanism of infecting the entire solar system over the eons. Gravity wells make some transport directions more likely than others. But over the vast amounts of time probably samples of every planet and moon have reached every other.
My prediction is some parts of Mars are hospitable to extremophile life and we will eventually discover it. It may be canyons where water-bearing layers appear to leak now and then. I further predict this life will very much look like Earth's. And the interesting follow-on question will be which planet did life start on first.
An underground ocean (which is what they predict is there causing the saltwater Geysers) is huge news for the idea of colonizing the planet.
That would mean we have Liquid water, and a source of energy (tides created by the planet). Build a Greenhouse, a Distillery, set up some Lights BAM
FARMS IN SPACE
I wonder...
So we have this moon that possibly has life in its ocean. And geysers which put this water into known orbits. Together with the water they put salts. And life - if one exists there.
So..."orbital scoop" flying for few years has a big chance to catch some microbes for the ride. Unfortunatelly...it will be probably several more decades before the next mission to Saturn; several more decades before we can sent purpose built spacecraft.
However...we already have a spacecraft that was flying there for quite some time. Perhaps, once RTGs deplete to such a degree that the scientific package will have to be largery shut down, it is sensible to:
1) put Cassini into orbit which maximalises probabilities of catching something for the ride (and without too much risk of hitting some ice block)
2) after several more years - bring Cassini back (through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interplanetary_Transport_Network for example). Put it into stable, high Earth orbit where it can wait for us to have means to investigate it (too bad we get rid of Shuttles, they would be usefull for that oe thing...)
It seems to me to be much better conclusion of the mission (even we won't find any signs of life on it) than sending it plunging towards Saturn...
One that hath name thou can not otter
If you think Montezuma's Revenge was bad...
Table-ized A.I.
and then there's this: http://www.physorg.com/news165068514.html
Popplers or tastesicles.
Hopefully, it's popplers.
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