Slashdot Mirror
Signs of Water Found On Saturnian Moon Enceladus
Matt_dk writes "Scientists working on the Cassini space mission have found negatively charged water ions in the ice plume of Enceladus. Their findings, based on analysis from data taken in plume fly-throughs in 2008 and reported in the journal Icarus, provide evidence for the presence of liquid water, which suggests the ingredients for life inside the icy moon. The Cassini plasma spectrometer, used to gather this data, also found other species of negatively charged ions including hydrocarbons."
There are creatures on earth that do not get their energy from the sun - they live near hydrothermal vents deep in the oceans. That's one possibility that we have seen ourselves; in fact it was this discovery in part that spurred on the search for life on other planets that would normally have been written off as far as supporting life was concerned.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Have scientists been able to throw together basic ingredients of living things and have the resulting pile resemble anything even close to life? Even in perfectly favorable lab settings?
yep
(Depending on how you define "life", of course)
Modding "-1, Troll" is not a proper response if you disagree with me. Try reason.
So you're operating under the assumption that these lifeforms evolved independently from a spontaneously-generated source?
No. It is only establishing that it is possible for life to exist in such environments.
I agree it's probable that the examples on earth evolved from life that formed where solar energy was readily available. But that doesn't necessarily mean its the only possible evolutionary path, any more than our history means warm blooded live-birthing animals can only evolve in the presence of giant reptiles who get conveniently wiped out by meteors. It also doesn't mean life can begin and evolve strictly from geological energy sources... We don't really have a good model of abiogenesis, but the things we're pretty sure are at least prerequisites are water, organic compounds like amino acids, and energy.
I'm not ready to say that the source of energy must be the sun.
The enemies of Democracy are
There is also a fairly common biological origin hypothesis that the thermo-chemical powered life found near vents was the earliest kind of life on earth and solar powered life evolved from it. This hypothesis fits our current understanding of earths early seas rather well. Though I don't think there is any way to advance it to a theory due to the near absolute lack of fossil records from that period.