Saturn Moon Could Be Hospitable To Life

shmG writes to share that recent imagery from Saturn's moon Enceladus indicate that it may be hospitable to life. "NASA said on Tuesday that a flyby of planet's Enceladus moon showed small jets of water spewing from the southern hemisphere, while infrared mapping of the surface revealed temperatures warmer than previously expected. 'The huge amount of heat pouring out of the tiger stripe fractures may be enough to melt the ice underground,' said John Spencer, a composite infrared spectrometer team member based at Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. 'Results like this make Enceladus one of the most exciting places we've found in the solar system.'"

Comments

Mmmmmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I like enchiladas

Re:Mmmmmmmm

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you morons keep thinking that "Enceladus" sounds like "enchilada"? Pronunciation time, shall we?

Enceladus : en-sell-uh-dus
enchilada : en-cha-la-da

Re:Mmmmmmmm

[BubbaDave]

All this time, my computer has been pronouncing it wrong!

Dave

alright

[Anonymous Coward]

so let's go take a fucking look already, goddamn.

Re:alright

[Fluffeh]

Well, while it's easy to say that, it's harder to back it up with flight cash, with research funding for the folks on earth who will plan, research and study the results and oh yeah, you are competing with how many other great ideas to go learn stuff about stuff we don't know about?

There are only so many spaceships that can go up at one time, and while the number is proportional to the funding that the space programs get, it's never going to allow for us to do everything we want.

If you feel very strongly about getting more and more study done, why not petition your local congressmen, ministers and elected officials to spend more on scientific research. Why not look at getting involved and offering your time as a volunteer to do some of the work that could potentially be done by non paid staff. Why not look at getting involved with your local university campus and gather support for a bipartisan effort with other universities to fund a study of something you feel passionate about?

Programmer? Why not offer to write some of the algorithms for them? Scientist? Why not put forward a proposal of what you want to study and why? Businessman? Why not actually offer some level of funding yourself towards a specific research goal? Knuckle-dragger? Why not offer to make make coffees, organize meetings for the others, be a PA to the staff and help out in the cafeteria to bring down costs?

Oh yeah, it's easier to just jump on here and throw out another internet meme.

Re:alright

[Kell Bengal]

Ask not what the space program can do for you, but what you can do for the space program.

Re:alright

[Anonymous Coward]

Non paid staff ? Are you kidding me. Let me know where I can get involved. Every non-paid staff (auxiliary) I try to get into, first not many places are known to accept, second non paid is treated like dirt - as if, we have nothing to do and idiots. I am a programmer and love to spend some time for NASA, JPL etc. Where do I sign up ?

Re:alright

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Yeah how hard can it be, it's not rocket sc... oh wait.

Seriously, I'm all for a new Apollo program but we're talking about an area in which even the leading experts sometimes get it devastatingly wrong with catastrophic results. It's going to take more than a volunteer effort.

Re:alright

[khallow]

Keep in mind also that space science funding is about the appearance of science rather than the actual science. Currently, Cassini occupies the Saturn science niche. It may well stay viable through 2017 (according to Wikipedia). That makes it difficult for any other Saturn mission to get funding. Also keep in mind that this is a lot like the planned Europa mission except it would be a touch more difficult (longer travel time, greater distance from Earth, etc). My bet is that we won't see a Enceladus mission for decades (at least until the Europa mission ends, probably after 2027), unless space science changes fundamentally to a much more aggressive mode.

What do I mean by "more aggressive"? For example, suppose instead of building one Europa Jupiter System Mission, we built a bunch and launched them to a number of the ice moons of Jupiter and Saturn. There are perhaps one to two dozen interesting moons to chose from, depending on the performance constraints of the spacecraft and its launch system. If you can land a probe on Europa, it should be able to land probes on most of Saturn's moons. The delta-v of a moon around Saturn is not any worse than the delta-v of landing something on Europa, a fairly large satellite deep within Jupiter's gravity well.

So instead of a single probe which costs $4.5 billion to develop and deploy, we could spend somewhat more to get a number of vehicles (remember development costs only happen once and you get economies of scale when you make and launch a quantity of near identical spacecraft. Various bits of infrastructure, particularly plutonium 238 manufacture and the Deep Space Network, would probably need upgrading. You might need to improve launch infrastructure to handle multiple launches during a launch window. The thing though is that this is a way to vastly reduce the cost of a unit of space science even though you spend somewhat more in the end.

Re:alright

[pnewhook]

remember development costs only happen once and you get economies of scale when you make and launch a quantity of near identical spacecraft

No. Economies of scale really only kick in to any significant value when you make more than 10 units. And only really kick in when you make more than 100.

All these space probes are hand built. Manufacture costs for two are still about twice the cost of one.

Re:alright

[khallow]

No. Economies of scale really only kick in to any significant value when you make more than 10 units. And only really kick in when you make more than 100.

The magic number is two units. That's when economies of scale start. Development costs don't double when you make two.

All these space probes are hand built. Manufacture costs for two are still about twice the cost of one.

That's not true. Hand built doesn't imply absence of economies of scale. In addition to one-time development costs as mentioned above, there's also the cost of assembling the tools and other durable resources you need. For example, I'm helping my brother build his basement. He bought thousands of dollars of tools in addition to the raw materials. If we were building a second basement somewhere, then the cost of those tools could be amortized over two basements instead of just one.

Further, I built some funky hand-made stuff (for high altitude weather balloons) like a carbon fiber balloon nozzle valve, electronics circuit board, or an inflatable strut. You learn a lot from making the first one.

Finally, I think there's a bit more efficiency in the allocation of labor. If you're building more than one spacecraft, then you can keep people busy longer. Further, when you do have delays (say while waiting on materials), the delay usually is not proportional to the number of spacecraft you are building.

Re:alright

[pnewhook]

Have you ever built anything substantial? Multi-million, multi-year dozen engineer project? I have.

You do save a bit on making a few instead of one, but trust me, significant economies of scale don't kick in until you produce more than 10 units. Before that it's only minor savings.

Re:alright

[khallow]

Have you ever built anything substantial? Multi-million, multi-year dozen engineer project?

Yes. No, but I did work at an X-Ray film manufacturing plant for a couple of summers and I did volunteer for several years at an aerospace non-profit.

You do save a bit on making a few instead of one, but trust me, significant economies of scale don't kick in until you produce more than 10 units. Before that it's only minor savings.

The thing to keep in mind here is that current spacecraft have very significant development and other one-time costs. For example, the Mars Exploration Rovers cost around 745 million to develop and build two (not counting operations cost which was $75 million through the first 90 days of operations on Mars). The additional cost of the second rover was $250 million including launch costs. That's effectively half the cost of building the first rover. Now building additional rovers probably wouldn't result in significant future drops in marginal cost until you build the sort of quantities you mention, but you should still see significant reductions in average cost from amortizing substantial one-time costs over more units.

Re:alright

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Volunteer effort can help though, a lot. Take, for example, the cubeat programs started by Stanford and Cal Poly, SLO. Those two universities teamed up to create a space-rated, spring driven separation system that is compatible with many modern launch systems (though they most often fly on the Dnepr). Creating that launch vehicle interface system has allowed scores of students around the world to develop very small microsats capable of doing anything from taking a picture of the Earth to prototyping technology. For instance, right now, NASA is helping to work on a cubesat mission that will be used as a proof of concept for solar sail technology. The cubesat architecture, a 10 x 10 x 10 cm bus, allows a cheap and simple satellite design that you can pack a lightweight solar sail into and deploy successfully. Then, based on the amount of acceleration and control yielded by this mission, NASA, and any other large organizations that want to, will be able to look at the data gathered by the mission. This data can be used in studies regarding the scaling of the technology and, one day, may contribute to having a viable large scale solar sail technology on the market.

That said, Cubesat programs at universities all over the world are open sourcing space to volunteer programs. I worked on a design concept, for my undergrad senior project, for a small space based telescope that will be constructed out of off the shelf components. It will send picture data down to various ground stations and the data will be uploaded and accessible via a website for all sorts of public schools, all around the world, to access and learn from. Ideally, it will generate an interest in future generations in space. This design is going on, for free, by graduate and undergraduate students at my Alma Mater. This is all volunteer work and it is making a difference

We are nerds. Space has probably filled the dreams of most slashdotters for years. As long as we view rocket science as a big black box of wonder and awe, then only a few elite nerds will have access to rockets. As soon as we do away with that notion (like the open source movement did away with that attitude regarding computers), space access will start getting cheaper, simpler, and easier.

Don't fear the space industry, become a part of it. The original poster to this thread hit it on the head perfectly. Contribute. Only by doing so will our species conquer the heavens above.

Everybody knows this

[jpmorgan]

Seriously, NASA. Anybody who's ever eaten at a bad Mexican restaurant knows enchiladas are hospitable to all forms of microscopic life.

Re:Everybody knows this

[bmk67]

Are you kidding? Bad mexican food is a perfect growth medium for microscopic life.

*Burp*

Re:Everybody knows this

[jbezorg]

Sounds like the planet has the green microbial splatters.

Re:Everybody knows this

[Culture20]

and spewing jets of liquid and gas.

Re:Everybody knows this

[pushing-robot]

True, but your only reference is Earth enchiladas. Theories on space enchiladas should be left to gastronomers.

Re:Everybody knows this

[Anonymous Coward]

That. was. awesome.

Re:Everybody knows this

[dmomo]

But what if that's nacho field of expertise?

Re:Everybody knows this

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure you want to taco bout this?

Not impressed

[MichaelSmith]

The conditions on Enceladus are believed to be short lived. It hasn't been going on for billions of years so complex life forms can not have had time to evolve.

Life could come from elsewhere on comets, meteors, etc but the habitable places are deep inside the moon so they can't be colonized that way.

Re:Not impressed

[pclminion]

If there happen to be biological fragments floating around in space, they might land on Enceladus and take advantage of the short-term conditions.

Re:Not impressed

[MichaelSmith]

If there happen to be biological fragments floating around in space, they might land on Enceladus and take advantage of the short-term conditions.

That was my second point. The surface is at 50 degrees K and is exposed to a lot of radiation. "Biological fragments floating around in space" would not find their way into the warm environment under ground.

Re:Not impressed

[cupantae]

There is indeed a family of microbes driving around the solar system in a car made out of an asteroid. The father microbe is wearing a stiff peaked cap and smoking a corn-cob pipe. They are going to settle on Enceladus for a brief spell. The daughter microbe is excited about the water, but the son would have preferred cable.

Sorry if that's difficult to understand at all, but that's the currently accepted theory.

Re:Not impressed

[Chris Burke]

The conditions on Enceladus are believed to be short lived. It hasn't been going on for billions of years so complex life forms can not have had time to evolve.

And... you wouldn't be impressed by simple life forms?

Okay, well, that's cool, but why you were paying any attention at all is beyond me. We're pretty sure there's no complex life anywhere else in the solar system.

Personally I'd be gobsmacked, flabbergasted, and impressed to all hell if we found even the most primitive of prokaryote.

Re:Not impressed

[MichaelSmith]

Even if conditions inside Enceladus could support some of the bacteria we have now on Earth they would not allow it to evolve. Most of the theories about the evolution of very primitive life require high quality energy from impacts, lightening, etc. Enceladus doesn't have these things. It also takes time. Possibly 500 million years or more and Enceladus doesn't have that as well.

Re:Not impressed

[interkin3tic]

It hasn't been going on for billions of years so complex life forms can not have had time to evolve.

The graphic on this wiki page suggests that life on earth arose 1.5 billion years after the earth was formed, nearly two billion years went by before multicellular life, and then another billion years before cnidarians, which developmentally are reasonably close to us and certainly what I would consider complex, were around. I don't know much about that, and I doubt anyone knows for sure what was going on in that time, but I don't see any evidence to suggest that a ~4 billion lag time from when your planet/moon is around to when complex life forms is a -universal- constant. There's nothing to say it couldn't happen much much faster on Enceladus, we only have one example of life arising, it would be a mistake to assume that is the constant or even typical rate of life arising. The cambrian explosion is certainly evidence that the rate changes wildly. Furthermore, we haven't even -seen- this environment, the only thing we know about it is that it's possible and it isn't like earth, so if we should expect anything, its that the timeline for life arising on Enceladus would be significantly different from Earth's.

Re:Not impressed

[Chris Burke]

Possibly 500 million years or more and Enceladus doesn't have that as well.

Possibly. But we've found prokaryote fossils from only 1 billion years after the earth's crust formed. So either life got busy evolving right away, or it doesn't necessarily take that long. Frankly I would avoid drawing strong conclusions either way based on the current state of abiogenesis theories.

Besides, in the larger picture of "how often to potentially habitable environments arise and what forms do they take?" I find this very exciting even under the most likely case that we find no evidence of life on this moon. We've gone from a model of the solar system where every rock that wasn't ours being right-out as far as life having a chance, to having a variety of environments that at least hypothetically could support it. Then I start thinking about our infant search for exoplanets and I get even more excited.

Re:Not impressed

[MichaelSmith]

There's nothing to say it couldn't happen much much faster on Enceladus

Overall there is less energy and less space on Enceladus so I predict that evolution will happen slower there.

Re:Not impressed

[geekd]

But if one of the kids mouths off ONE MORE TIME, father microbe is turning that asteroid car right around, and they are. GOING. HOME.

Re:Not impressed

[DJRumpy]

Add to that the fact that there is an obvious heat (energy) source there. Black Smokers also produce thermal energy, and chemical energy. We know they can support entire ecosystems thousands of feat under water.

Re:Not impressed

[TapeCutter]

I'm unimpressed by your arguments and see no reason for your pessimisim. One of the best theories we have of abiogenisis is that it formed around undersea volcanic vents. Since the tidal forces of Staurn are heating the moon from the inside causing similar vents to appear on the surface it safe to say that Earth like vents are occuring in the rocky core of the moon. Abiogenisis in 10 minutes - "No rediculous improbability, no supernatural forces, no lightening striking a mud puddle. Just Chemistry!"

Re:Not impressed

[CheshireCatCO]

I believe that current work suggests evidence of life arising withing the first few hundred million years of Earth's existence, not long after life could exist at all. (Prior to a certain point, sterilizing impacts were too frequent to let anything get far.) Probably half a billion years to no more than 1 billion years after the Earth formed we've found evidence of life. (Evidence gets to be isotopic beyond a certain point, but still.)

Re:Not impressed

[ChromeAeonium]

Amen. The possibility of extraterrestrial life is easily the most interesting thing there is. We might get more energy from nuclear engineering or more food from genetic engineering or longer life from medical sciences, but this is like the gold of the scientific world: it is intrinsically valuable. Even if nothing useful comes out of it, answering the question of whether or not there is anything on those moons would be worth it. The simplest of life living on another world would be phenomenal (even if it turns out that life originated on Earth, although native would be much more fascinating), or even just fossil evidence that there once was something, and even if we come up with nothing, just knowing more about the surfaces of other worlds is simply wonderful. Why we're not funding projects to prepare for trips to Enceladus or Titan or Europa is beyond me.

Re:Not impressed

[Rei]

The conditions on Enceladus are believed to be short lived.

Where are you getting that from? Why would its tidal force heating have been less in the past?

Re:Not impressed

[Hurricane78]

Personally I'd be gobsmacked, flabbergasted, and impressed to all hell if we found even the most primitive of prokaryote.

Yeah, because the likeliness of life on another planet evolving exactly like on ours, in practically zero.
Despite certain (pseudo-)“scientists” (with arrogance and limited imagination) being unable to think otherwise.

I bet $100 that we won’t even recognize the first extraterrestrial life we’ll ever see.
And I bet another $50 that we will even damage or kill some of them, e.g. by standing right on them, while searching for “life” in a drop of water right next to it... and giving up.

Or, as xkcd said it: http://xkcd.com/638/

Re:Not impressed

[rhook]

More likely that would cause evolution to happen faster there since there would be much more competition for resources. Survival is what drives evolution.

Re:Not impressed

[Chris Burke]

Yeah, because the likeliness of life on another planet evolving exactly like on ours, in practically zero.

It wouldn't have to be exactly like ours to be able to be roughly describes as prokaryotic. It's an obvious stage for any biological life to go through. But really I was just saying "prokaryote" as an example of simple life.

Despite certain (pseudo-)"scientists" (with arrogance and limited imagination) being unable to think otherwise.

Uh it's not that they're unable to think otherwise. It's that if you're going to look for life, it only makes sense to look for the kind of life that you know is possible and can identify. And the "kind" is simply self-organizing organic (meaning hydrocarbon based) molecules. Which chemistry strongly suggests requires liquid water. It's not really that specific, but based on what we know can work in broadest terms. It's pragmatism, not limited imagination.

You can say "It might not be organic, it could be like something we've never even imagined!" Which is hypothetically true, but useless on its own. So go ahead, Mr. Non-pseudo-non-quotes-scientist, actually propose something we can look for, some testable hypothesis.

Yeah.

I bet $100 that we won't even recognize the first extraterrestrial life we'll ever see.

I'm curious how you would be able to call that bet. :)

But you know you may be right. For all the good that statement does us.

Or, as xkcd said it: http://xkcd.com/638/

You get that the point of the comic is about prematurely assuming your search is over, which is completely the opposite of what we're doing, right? So take heart. The search goes on, and we're using every tool we know of to do so, and looking for new tools as well.

Re:Not impressed

[MichaelSmith]

The conditions on Enceladus are believed to be short lived.

Where are you getting that from? Why would its tidal force heating have been less in the past?

There have been many articles which try to explain the gap in the known energy input from tidal heating and the known energy output of the plumes. This PDF suggests that we are now seeing energy released from a recent period when the orbital eccentricity was higher and the moon absorbed more heat. The upshot seems to be that current conditions are temporary and can't be used to model the entire history of the moon.

Re:Not impressed

[MichaelSmith]

I just want to point out that Enceladus can't have undersea volcanic vents like ours because it is a lump of ice a few hundred kilometers across. It may well have some rock deep down but there won't be enough for it to be liquid and to have volcanos. To have volcanos you need a deep mantle of hot rock.

You can have cryovolcanos but we don't have evidence of life forming there.

Re:Not impressed

[coaxial]

"Biological fragments floating around in space" would not find their way into the warm environment under ground.

I don't think you have a grasp of the time scales we're talking about. We're talking about BILLIONS of years. The Earth is about 4.5 billion years old. While I don't know the age of Enceladus, I think it's safe to assume it's contemporaneous with the Earth. This means that's even incredibly improbable events may have indeed occurred.

Think about this: I don't think anyone knows for sure about where the initial organic compounds arrived on Earth, but organic compounds (i.e. molecules containing carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen) are exceedingly common throughout the universe, so let's say for sake of argument that the compounds on Earth, initially came from some place else. (Which in a sense they have to since, atoms heavier than hydrogen only form in stars). In the ensuing 4.5 BILLION years. It's improbable that these compounds would come together and form more complex compounds, but yet they have. These compounds in turn, formed more complex compounds, and so and so, until eventually we're here. We're talking a thousand monkeys typing on a thousand typewriters writing the greatest novel known to man. ("'It was the best of times. It was the blurst of times.' 'The BLURST of times'? You stupid monkey!") Given enough time, it WILL happen.

Now has it happened? I don't know. You don't know. No one knows. None of us will know until we send a probe with sensitive enough instruments down into one of those fissures. My point is, that you're thinking to small. Humans don't have an intuitive idea of the scale of the universe, either in size or time. We think still think 100 years is a long time, even though people live that long. We think a 2000 years is the distant past We only recorded the last 5000 years. Let's go back further. As a species we're only 500,000 years old. That's .0000500 billion years. In other words, nothing. You're thinking too small.

Re:Not impressed

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be surprised, nothing impresses an idiot. They don't understand anything, and there's just no way an idiot like GP poster MichaelSmith will get impressed by things he can't possibly understand.

Re:Not impressed

[Rei]

I've seen one article which said that it can all be explained simply by the asymmetry of the heating -- that is, there's not enough heating for the entire interior of Enceladus to be liquid, but there is for a portion of it to be liquid, so long as there was a mechanism to concentrate it to one side -- which is what we see (and they postulated one method, although I forget what it was).
 

Re:Not impressed

[khallow]

I just want to point out that Enceladus can't have undersea volcanic vents like ours because it is a lump of ice a few hundred kilometers across. It may well have some rock deep down but there won't be enough for it to be liquid and to have volcanos. To have volcanos you need a deep mantle of hot rock.

Quite true. There's a good chance however that it has hydrothermal activity, which is really what "volcanic vents" are.

Re:Not impressed

[MichaelSmith]

I think my disquiet with the idea of life on Enceladus involves the fact that while there might be a lot of heat on Enceladus there is very little concentrated, high quality heat. Volcanos, impacts and solar energy on Earth create pockets of highly concentrated energy which can act as incubators. These can't exist in the interior of Enceladus. Impacts may raise the temperature of the surface but the environments they create will be short lived.

Re:Not impressed

[Daniel Dvorkin]

More likely that would cause evolution to happen faster there since there would be much more competition for resources. Survival is what drives evolution.

Except it doesn't work that way. The ocean is a far more hospitable environment for life than anywhere on land, and we see a much greater variety of aquatic life than terrestrial. On land, tropical rainforests are probably about the most hospitable environments for life there is -- and surprise, we see much more variety there than we do in cooler and drier areas.

Competition for resources happens everywhere; whatever the resources available, the creatures living there will reproduce until they reach the limit of a sustainable population. It's the availability of resources that drives species diversity.

Re:Not impressed

[rubycodez]

you have me thinking of ways life could exist. and if we'd "see" it right away.

chemical life uses information storage in patterns of atoms, and has to assemble parts of itself. Not too many atoms can form chains: carbon, phosphorous, silicon, and sulphur. I think we would recognize any life made of any of those.

how about electronic life? we know electricity can effect certain types of crystal growth, how about an electro-chemical beast that is something like self-modifying circuitry with switching elements and substrate that can be grown or re-absorbed based on current ebb and flow. Detectable, but yeah could be standing on it before detecting it.

Re:Not impressed

[TapeCutter]

As expalianed in the video the source of heat is irrelevant, the convection currents that cycle the lipids through hot and cold are what counts. There is no evidence to suggest Enceladus is entirely made of pure water, it's likely to have a small rocky center where the friction of rocks moving under tidal forces produce enough heat to melt the interior ice and cause the observed eruptions on the surface.

Where ever we have looked for life living in "impossible" environments on earth we have found it. 2km into the earth's crust, sulphuric acid lakes, reactor cores, ect, ect. I'm not claiming there is life on Enceladus, simply that it's one of the best targets to look for it. I don't understand why you are going out of your way to rationalise your desire to ignore such an interesting target.

Re:Not impressed

[pnewhook]

It also takes time. Possibly 500 million years or more and Enceladus doesn't have that as well.

What are you talking about? Life here on Earth has only been around for 8000 years. Of course only non-intelligent life actually believes that.

Re:Not impressed

[pnewhook]

The heat on Enceladus comes from the massive gravitational effect of Saturn which is constantly twisting the planet and generating interior core heat.

Re:Not impressed

[Black Gold Alchemist]

In addition, even if Enceladus was all ice, I think the tidal forces in the ice would generate heat. Some would be high grade heat. Think about the scary noises you sometimes hear in frozen lakes - those are the ice heaving as it melts. The same thing would happen on Enceladus because of the gas giant's gravity (huge). If you were in the water, you would probably here some loud noises from the ice breaking down.

Re:Not impressed

[MichaelSmith]

It also takes time. Possibly 500 million years or more and Enceladus doesn't have that as well.

What are you talking about? Life here on Earth has only been around for 8000 years. Of course only non-intelligent life actually believes that.

Old meme is old.

Re:Not impressed

[TapeCutter]

"Think about the scary noises you sometimes hear in frozen lakes - those are the ice heaving as it melts."

I live in Australia you insesitive clod!

Seriously though, if it was pure water then there would be little chance of life. But Cassini has already "tasted" organics in the ice vents, implying there's more to it than just water.

Re:Not impressed

[jonadab]

> even incredibly improbable events may have indeed occurred.

The math doesn't work on that.

I mean, it would, if "incredibly improbable" meant something on the general order of one in a billion, like winning the lottery or being struck by lightning or some other moderately unlikely event that does, in fact, actually happen occasionally.

But when "incredibly improbable" starts meaning stuff like "one in ten to the seven thousand three hundred and eighty-third power", a few billion (or even trillion) years doesn't even scratch the surface. I know, I know, "billions of years" sounds like a lot, but in the face of really large improbabilities, it's nothing. When the numbers start getting big, a trillion can get lost in the underflow real fast. When an event is seriously improbable, it's not really much more likely to have occurred in a hundred billion years than it is to have occurred in the last five minutes.

It is vaguely conceivable that Enceladus could have microbes. Anything I (or anyone other than a microbiologist) would call "life", however, is, for all practical purposes, totally impossible.

Re:Not impressed

[mcgrew]

how about electronic life? we know electricity can effect certain types of crystal growth, how about an electro-chemical beast that is something like self-modifying circuitry with switching elements and substrate that can be grown or re-absorbed based on current ebb and flow.

Well, they wouldn't be "ugly bags of mostly water."

Re:Not impressed

[Black Gold Alchemist]

Pure water will definitely not work. Even with organics, there will probably need to be other trace elements to act as catalysts (zinc, copper, iron, etc). Think about how proteins and molecules usually "hold" some other atom (eg, chlorophyll contains magnesium). It should be noted that CO2 + Hydrogen + Certain Minerals = Organics, so the minerals might already be there.

Re:Not impressed

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all life on earth is carbon based, diatoms a major group of eukaryotic algae and the most common type of phytoplankton are silica based. However do rely on water (obviously).

Re:Not impressed

[Anonymous Coward]

Just a wild guess, but maybe the speed with which those primitive life forms evolved was proportional to the number of spots where it could evolve, which should be proportional to the surface of the planet, everything else being equal. Thus, something that took 500 million years on Earth should take 2 billion years on a planet half the size (Mars) --- and these satellites are even smaller.
Also, chemical reaction speeds depend on temperature, so, maybe, instead of surface area, the speed should be proportional to the integral of temperature over the surface area.
This may explain why there isn't life in other parts of the Solar system.

Dane Cook? That You?

[Anonymous Coward]

I told you not to steal my jokes anymore, you hack.

Re:Dane Cook? That You?

[pak9rabid]

Dane Cook? That You?

Nah, we'd be at smug alert level 5 if it was.

Obligatory 2010 Quote

[CohibaVancouver]

All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landings there.

Re:Obligatory 2010 Quote

[idontgno]

ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS EXCEPT EUROPA. And Enceladus. And maybe TITAN, we haven't decided on that yet. BUT THE OTHERS, YEAH, ALL YOURS.
You know, on second thought, ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS ANYWHERE BEFORE CHECKING WITH US. KTHXBYE

Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.

Apparently, slashdot feels like telling the omnipotent mysterious monolith what to do. Bad idea...

Re:Obligatory 2010 Quote

[notjustchalk]

I always thought this was one of the sillier endings in a book/movie (one that I otherwise enjoyed, mind you). Why would a proto-omniscient intelligence target attention to the one place it didn't want it? However, it certainly seems to be one of the more enduring tropes in fiction - e.g. Pandora's Box, the apple tree of Eden, etc.

Re:Obligatory 2010 Quote

[MightyMartian]

The warning was sent out because once Lucifer/Jupiter calmed down into semi-stability, Europa would very obviously have an atmosphere, and the first things humans (which in Clarke's universe, actually travel further than orbit) would do is land there.

Re:Obligatory 2010 Quote

[reverseengineer]

Just my interpretation, but I believe that the proto-omniscient intelligence assumed that whether or not humans let their curiosity get the better of them was irrelevant since it could easily stop any attempt at landing. The implied end of the monolith's message was really "ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE. UNDERSTAND THAT IT WOULD BE NO PROBLEM AT ALL TO THWART YOUR PITIFUL EFFORTS. NOTICE THAT JUPITER IS NOW A STAR? YEAH."

And according to "2061: Odyssey Three," all attempts to send robotic probes failed when they got close- it wasn't just an idle warning; a monolith stuck around on Europa in order to protect it from interference. So while the other Galilean moons were colonized soon after Jupiter was ignited, humanity really did stay off the surface. Until a gigantic diamond hit Europa, anyway.

Re:Obligatory 2010 Quote

[interkin3tic]

Apparently, slashdot feels like telling the omnipotent mysterious monolith what to do. Bad idea...

(spoilers for 3001, although its been a while and I have a bad memory so maybe not...)

Not really, the monoliths were destroyed by a computer virus in 3001 if I recall, so I'm sure slashdot could come up with enough goatse trolls, rickrolls, kdawson stories, overrated moderations etc to annoy the monoliths into leaving, if not blowing up.

I'll get things started

I, for one, welcome our monolithic, slashdot browsing, beowulf cluster running overlords.

Re:Obligatory 2010 Quote

[CohibaVancouver]

I haven't read it in 20+ years, but in the book, didn't the Chinese attempt a landing, with resultant Really Bad Stuff?

Re:Obligatory 2010 Quote

[reverseengineer]

The Chinese attempted a landing before the warning- and before the conversion of Jupiter into a star. Really bad stuff did occur, because their landing attracted the native life of Europa. The reason the monolith ignited Jupiter at the story's end was in large part to give that native life a more hospitable enviroment for development by thawing the Europan ice.

Re:Obligatory 2010 Quote

[Foobar of Borg]

You're saying Lucifer is the same as Jupiter??? And you haven't gotten a lightning bolt shoved up your ass yet??? GREEK MOTHERFUCKER, DO YOU SPEAK IT???

Re:Obligatory 2010 Quote

[element-o.p.]

It's been a while since I've read the book as well, but IIRC, the Chinese received a warning shot across the bow before the Really Bad Stuff occurred.

Re:Obligatory 2010 Quote

[camperdave]

Yes, the Chinese did land there. They landed near a crack in the ice and drilled through. A plant colony came up through the hole in the ice, and made its way across the ice to the spaceship (being the hottest/brightest thing on the surface). It managed to get to the ship and pull it down. The Chinese were thus stranded. One of them survived the destruction of the ship and transmitted the message via his suit radio.

Re:Obligatory 2010 Quote

[silentsteel]

Actually, Jupiter is a Roman god, thus the name Jupiter is the English transliteration of the Latin name. Lucifer is the English transliteration of the Latin name for Satan. Zeus would be Greek. Therefore, depending upon one's perspective, Jupiter=Lucifer.

Re:Obligatory 2010 Quote

[Culture20]

You're saying Lucifer is the same as Jupiter??? And you haven't gotten a lightning bolt shoved up your ass yet??? GREEK MOTHERFUCKER, DO YOU SPEAK IT???

Jupiter the planet was renamed Lucifer (lightbearer) when it became a star. 2010: ODYSSEY TWO, DO YOU READ IT???

Re:Obligatory 2010 Quote

[Rei]

Historically, Lucifer is Venus, the Morning Star/Evening Star/Daystar (although in modern times, "daystar" has come to mean the sun). We get the word Lucifer from the vulgate where it's a literal translation of Light-Bringer -- Lux + Ferre. Isaiah uses Venus as an analogy for the fall of the king of Babylon. However, because the imagery he used was similar to that of the apocryphal story of the fall of Satan, early Christians confused the two.

Re:Obligatory 2010 Quote

[Abcd1234]

It's been a while since I've read the book as well, but IIRC, the Chinese received a warning shot across the bow before the Really Bad Stuff occurred.

No, they definitely did not (I've just started 3001, so this is fairly fresh).

*SPOILER ALERT*

As the joint US-Russian vessel Leonov was en route to rendezvous with Discovery, they got reports that China had secretly sent off their own mission to the Jupiter system, presumably to beat the US to the derelict vessel. The only problem was that it seemed to be a suicide mission, as there was no clear way they could return. Later, as Leonov approached Jupiter, they witnessed China complete their slingshot maneuver around Jupiter, and they assumed the point was to enter a trajectory to meet up with Discovery. However, it soon became clear that they actually aimed for Europa. At this point, the Leonov crew they realized that China's plan was actually to land on Europa and use it as a source of propellant, at which point they'd be able to explore the Jupiter system, including Discovery, and then return to earth.

Eventually China did land safely on Europa, and it seemed all was well. Unfortunately, the flood lights they used to illuminate the area around their ship attracted an undersea life form that resembled some sort of plant life. This life form pursued the Chinese vessel and destroyed it, leaving just one survivor who was able to radio back to Leonov to report the event before he died.

So at this stage it was clear that there was life on Europa, but that it was fairly primitive. At the end of 2010, the monolith replicated itself, surrounding Jupiter and forcing an implosion, which ignited Jupiter forming the star Lucifer, with the goal of creating an environment on Europa that would be conducive to the development of higher life forms. And just prior to the implosion, David Bowman instructed the now-reactivated Hal to send the famous message to Earth: "All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landings there." Hal was then "extracted" from the computer prior to the ship being destroyed, and he joined Bowman to wait until they were needed again.

Re:Obligatory 2010 Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

The monolith was somewhat intelligent. When that ship was crashed onto Europa in 2061 it didn't interfere with the attempt to rescue the crew and passengers, though the events in 3001 imply that Hal/Bowman had something to do with that.

Re:Obligatory 2010 Quote

[carp3_noct3m]

Yep, its funny when Christians don't even know what they are saying, stuff like Lucifer is Satan! A simple Wikipedia search would tell you about how there is little correlation between Lucifer and Satan besides *gasp* people mixing them up. Sigh @ religion, it encourages blindness.

Re:Obligatory 2010 Quote

[TheRaven64]

3001 contradicted a number of points from the earlier books (which implied faster than light communication and that all of the monoliths were extrusions of the same n-dimensional entity), but it did not indicate that all of the monoliths had been destroyed. Only the ones in this solar system were affected by the virus, the control point, 500 light years away, was controlled by sentient entities and so would not have been vulnerable to the logic bomb.

Clarke explains the complete lack of continuity between the books in the series by claiming that they all take place in separate parallel universes.

It's worth noting that the original drafts of 2001 and the novel had it taking place around Saturn, not Jupiter. For 2010, both the film and the book took place around Jupiter (which is very jarring if you read the books in order), so references to the novel of 2001 are more appropriate to this story than anything else in the series...

Re:Obligatory 2010 Quote

[Jason Levine]

Or, to mix two different references:

All these worlds are yours except Europa. And Enceladus. The two worlds that aren't yours are Europa and Enceladus... and Titan. The three worlds... no, amongst your worlds... amongst the worlds.... I'll come in again.

Re:Obligatory 2010 Quote

[element-o.p.]

I stand (or sit, rather) corrected. It has been a while since read the books ;)

well....

[Michael Kristopeit]

if we were never sure that it couldn't "be hospitable to life", then nothing has changed.

Re:well....

[Chris Burke]

Umm... Huh?

Something changed all right. Our knowledge of conditions on Enceledus went from basically zilch to what you're reading about today thanks to the Casini probe.

We weren't "sure" that it couldn't be hospitable to life because we didn't know very much about it, but for things that far away from the sun more or less the default estimation of habitability is "not likely".

Re:well....

[Michael Kristopeit]

umm... huh? we aren't "sure" that forms of "life" don't exist that thrive in environments we wouldn't currently consider "hospitable" to them. i was pointing out the lack of deterministic scientific information in the headline.

Re:well....

[Chris Burke]

we aren't "sure" that forms of "life" don't exist that thrive in environments we wouldn't currently consider "hospitable" to them.

True, and? Do you still not see how this represents an increase in our knowledge, and therefore a change in the conditional probability of life being hosted by Enceladus in favor of it?

i was pointing out the lack of deterministic scientific information in the headline.

By feigning an inability to see variations in degree of "could"? Or what? I mean it's a headline. Of course it doesn't contain much scientific information.

Anyway, I just hope you understand that "nothing has changed" is very wrong. Any semantic nits you want to pick beyond that are fine with me.

Re:well....

[Michael Kristopeit]

i hope you one day understand that "nothing has changed" relative to the possibility implied by "could" out of any deterministic context is completely correct.

the correct headline as written by an informed editor, such as yourself, would thus read, "increase in our knowledge regarding saturn moon".

only someone who is either uniformed, irresponsible, or lying would write the headline in it's current form.

Re:well....

[Chris Burke]

i hope you one day understand that "nothing has changed" relative to the possibility implied by "could" out of any deterministic context is completely correct.

Deterministic context, what? I'm sorry, which definition are you using and how is it relevant? If you're talking definition 2, the state of being determined, then this isn't a deterministic context (as the word "could" itself implies).

The conditional probability ("conditional" means based on knowledge) of Enceladus' potential habitability for life has gone up base on our increased knowledge. So in a factual context, "nothing has changed" is still completely wrong.

The only way it could be correct is if you don't acknowledge any states but "100% sure life exists", "100% sure it doesn't" and "other".

the correct headline as written by an informed editor, such as yourself, would thus read, "increase in our knowledge regarding saturn moon".

And this knowledge in particular was of the environment on the moon being more habitable to life than previously thought. Your headline isn't very good because it gives no indication of what this knowledge told us, and it did indeed tell us something. And yes, I am informed, and I think the current headline is fine.

only someone who is either uniformed, irresponsible, or lying would write the headline in it's current form.

Only a fool or someone deliberately playing one would believe that about the headline in it's current form. So, stop.

Re:well....

[Michael Kristopeit]

i said "nothing has changed". you said i am wrong. you claim "could" has "variations in degree". i am saying that unless those variations are stated and to what degree they have changed, that the "determined state" of knowledge after reading the headline is identical to that of before reading the headline.

nothing has implicitly changed.

Re:well....

[Michael Kristopeit]

i think you don't understand that my problem is with the headline only... not the conclusions formed from the data the headline references.

which of these headlines do you feel is "most correct" using your understanding of "variations in degree":
saturn moon hosts life maybe one day
saturn moon more hospitable to life than once thought
new probe data shows saturn moon contains some necessities for known forms of life

my problem is that the LEAST correct headline was chosen.

Re:well....

[Chris Burke]

the "determined state" of knowledge after reading the headline is identical to that of before reading the headline.

nothing has implicitly changed.

Nooooo... Nothing has explicitly changed, so if you read the headline literally and with a deliberate lack of context, provided by either the summary or personal knowledge, it could mean nothing has changed.

However even the simplest of person could see that saying "could be habitable" in the context of our cold and mostly lifeless solar system implicitly suggests a degree of habitability higher than the default which is an extremely remote definition of "could". That's why it's a news item. So implicitly, yes something has changed.

But good job on using your vast intellect to fail to understand something extremely simple. And you think the headline should be changed based on that deliberate lack of understanding. See what literalism and pedantry get you when applied outside of the few narrow contexts in which they are appropriate? They get you failure.

Re:well....

[Michael Kristopeit]

if you read the headline literally and with a deliberate lack of context, provided by either the summary or personal knowledge, it could mean nothing has changed.

noooooo.... it does mean nothing has changed.

Re:well....

[Michael Kristopeit]

However even the simplest of person could see that saying "could be habitable" in the context of our cold and mostly lifeless solar system implicitly suggests a degree of habitability higher than the default which is an extremely remote definition of "could". That's why it's a news item.

the most complex of person might immediately understand that "could be habitable" is equal to "could be unhabitable"... but you seem to believe that news items are all magically justified based on nothing but their existence. that's why you are incorrect.

Re:well....

[Michael Kristopeit]

in the context of our cold and mostly lifeless solar system implicitly suggests a degree of habitability higher than the default

so the default degree of habitability is based on our current understanding that you are claiming is and has changed. in the context of a universe with a changing default degree of habitability implicitly makes all claims relative to it non-deterministic.

Re:well....

[Michael Kristopeit]

The conditional probability ("conditional" means based on knowledge) of Enceladus' potential habitability for life has gone up base on our increased knowledge. So in a factual context, "nothing has changed" is still completely wrong.

that would be true if an increase in knowledge was stated. however, it wasn't; so in a truly factual context, your claim that my claim is "completely wrong" is totally wrong.

Re:well....

[Michael Kristopeit]

consider this headline: "your farts might be stinkier than you think".

can the reader infer anything new about their own farts, or the tendency of stinkiness levels in the farts of others?

you are claiming "yes, they can"... you are claiming that everyone's farts are now explicitly stinkier on average than they believe them to be just because an article exists with a vague headline.

you obviously have either little regard or experience regarding journalistic integrity. perhaps i have too much of both.

Re:well....

[Chris Burke]

the most complex of person might immediately understand that "could be habitable" is equal to "could be unhabitable"...

Yes, they would understand that, which is why my response to your first post (when it wasn't clear that you were nitpicking the wording of the headline alone) was simply "Huh?" as in "Why are you saying something so obvious?"

They would also understood that the degrees of "could be" and "could be not" are not necessarily "equal", and that emphasizing the "could" was not an accident or mistake. They would understand that stating that a specific moon "could" be habitable was meant to imply a greater degree of "could" than your average rock in the solar system. They would understand it is a stronger statement than "well we don't know it's impossible".

but you seem to believe that news items are all magically justified based on nothing but their existence. that's why you are incorrect.

LOL, no. We're talking about conveyed knowledge in the headline, as in meaning, as in communication in a natural language.

If the actual content of the article showed there was no justification for emphasizing "could" over "could not" because no knew knowledge on the habitability to life of Enceladus had been acquired, you could say that the headline was misleading or simply wrong for suggesting otherwise.

To say that the headline doesn't suggest that life is more likely on Eneceladus than previously thought, and more likely than your average cold dead space rock, is to blatantly fail reading comprehension. It's incredibly obvious what meaning the headline intended to convey -- everyone else got it. Everyone else expected that the article would cover new discoveries that made life on Enceladus seem more likely.

Oh and look, that intended meaning turns out to also be completely correct! What a coincidence!

The funny part is I bet you automatically understood what the intended message was when you first read it. Then you had to remind yourself to be mindlessly literal, and deliberately make yourself not understand plain English. Who told you that reading comprehension of natural language communication was best done through context-free literalism? I know it wasn't an educator.

in the context of a universe with a changing default degree of habitability implicitly makes all claims relative to it non-deterministic.

Yes, which is why you were wrong to interpret the headline in a "deterministic context"! Because this isn't one!

FFS.

But please, do continue to congratulate yourself for being so smart that you fail to understand plain English. Please continue explaining how it's wrong to use context and interpretation to figure out the implied strength of non-deterministic words like "could". Please explain how it is never possible to tell if someone using "could" means "it's a distinct possibility" vs "*shrug* anything could happen". You could really show how smart you are!

Re:well....

[Michael Kristopeit]

you are completely and totally wrong.

Re:well....

[Michael Kristopeit]

perhaps you don't understand the difference between the freedom of speech applied to natural conversation, and the burden of responsibility placed on journalists. you have agreed with all of my points. you could not be more wrong. why would i spend time congratulating myself on being so smart when i have so much work left to do convincing you that you are perhaps nothing but?

THE HEADLINE WAS NON-OPTIMAL. THAT WAS MY POINT. YOU ACKNOWLEDGED THAT YOU INITIALLY MISUNDERSTOOD MY POINT, BUT CONTINUE TO ARGUE. MY POINT WAS THE HEADLINE MIGHT BE MISUNDERSTOOD BY OTHERS. AVOIDING MISUNDERSTANDINGS IS IMPORTANT.

Sailor Moon

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it wrong that I first read "Saturn Moon" as "Sailor Moon"?

Re:Sailor Moon

[Anonymous Coward]

No, that's perfectly normal.

Re:Sailor Moon

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends. Did you picture the moon naked?

Re:Sailor Moon

[Foobar of Borg]

Depends. Did you picture the moon naked?

That depends. Is the Moon under the age of 18?

Re:Sailor Moon

[Anonymous Coward]

In stellar years.

Re:Sailor Moon

[Amiralul]

Sailor Moon?

Re:Sailor Moon

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok. Just checking.

Nothing new

[Kitkoan]

I've heard about this over a year ago, at a minimum.

Same goes with Jupiter's moon Europa ( http://www.solarviews.com/eng/europa.htm ). Signs are that it could have liquid water inside, as quoted from the site: "Since liquid water existed in the past, could life have formed and even exist today? The primary ingredients for life are water, heat, and organic compounds obtained from comets and meteorites. Europa has had all three. From the images and data collected by the Galileo spacecraft, scientists believe that a subsurface ocean existed in relative recent history and may still be present beneath the icy surface. Europa's water should have frozen long ago, but warming could be occurring due to the tidal tug of war with Jupiter and neighboring moons."

Same site mentions that the water has been spotted spewing forth from Enceladus in July 14, 2005, being also noted as a "dramatic warm spot centered on the pole that is probably a sign of internal heat leaking out of the icy moon" ( http://www.solarviews.com/eng/enceladus.htm )

And, you know what?

[Minwee]

They probably still have better broadband there than in the US.

Besides planet Earth

[Maeric]

Results like this make Enceladus one of the most exciting places we've found in the solar system.

... besides planet Earth.

Re:Besides planet Earth

[beefnog]

Results like this make Enceladus one of the most exciting places we've found in the solar system.

... besides planet Earth.

What you already have rarely stays exciting. This is why affairs happen.

Re:Besides planet Earth

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

If your spouse were inhabited by 6 billion balding apes making kalashnikovs, mud bricks, and bad sitcoms, you'd stray too...

Re:Besides planet Earth

[element-o.p.]

What you already have rarely stays exciting. This is why affairs happen.

Then you have no imagination ;)

Re:Besides planet Earth

[Anonymous Coward]

No-one found planet Earth, it was there when we got here.

Stop misusing that thatsnomoon tag!

[Jugalator]

WTF. This is a moon! Use it for huge stuff that aren't what they seem, but not for actual moons!

OK, I'm done. ;)

chanes of life on other worlds

[troylanes]

If habitable worlds, for life as we know it, are more common than once though in our own solar system, does this necessarily imply that other solar systems are more likely to contain such worlds? Or, perhaps, is our solar system somewhat unique in this aspect?

Keep repeating that

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe Paris Hilton goes there!

Donate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where can we donate money to send all of the Democrats and Republicans to this moon?

Re:Donate?

[Anonymous Coward]

And the Greeens shall inherit the Earth...

Re:Donate?

[Anonymous Coward]

Until they try to tell the Libertarians not to burn fossil fuels, at which time they'll be beaten up and their lunch money stolen.

Re:Donate?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that libertarian ideals require a "fair" redress from all forms of property infringement including pollution and other negative effects caused by such things as fossil fuel use, right? (Thus, carbon credits are a very libertarian idea as long as they aren't given away freely and are fairly priced to offset harm rather than artificially restricted to limit production and put forth an agenda of restriction.) Or are you just making assumptions about something you don't know anything about? (Though, to be fair, the war would be what the negative value of the fossil fuel use holds.)

Splendid!

[diesel66]

Just give me a few minutes to pack some things, and we're off!

A big relief!

[Anonymous Coward]

I was beginning to think my Enceladus beach front property might be worthless. I guess for once those spam offers weren't a rip off.

Oh, shit!

[Locke2005]

You mean that Arthur C. Clarke screwed up, and it's Enceladus, not Europa, that we're not supposed to land on?!? Damn!

So what if there's no life there

[Ricken]

Who cares if life exists or not, I wanna live there!

Habitable?

[physburn]

By Habitable they mean habitable by some life forms. A claim made for any place that happens to have liquid water in it. Since Enceladus has occasion steam, water jet out pooring doesn't mean it has a steady warm inner ocean, like titan is thought to have. I just read on Scientific American the latest results on the surface and interior of Titan. Titan has very good conditions for life, and since its so close to Enceladus, and the whole saturn system, is so full with minor particles, its easy to imagine life starting in Titans ocean, and getting carried to Enceladus. I'm not expecting anything much bigger than a microbe though.

---

Exobiology Feed @ Feed Distiller

Re:Habitable?

[CheshireCatCO]

A claim made for any place that happens to have liquid water in it.

No, it's a claim made about places with liquid water, necessary materials (CHON elements, mainly), and an energy source of putative life to exploit. Liquid water just tends to be the toughest of those requirements to meet.

Since Enceladus has occasion steam, water jet out pooring doesn't mean it has a steady warm inner ocean

First, the jets are "occasional". They've been on as long as we've looked with Cassini and evidence suggests they've operated for a while. Second, no one is claiming a liquid ocean. In fact, I'm almost certain that's been ruled out for quite a while. What's being suggested is a small reservoir of liquid water just below the south pole.

(Also, it's not technically "steam" coming out. Steam in invisible water gas. These are visible water droplets and ice particles.)

like titan is thought to have.

There's evidence suggesting that there may be liquid 100 km below the surface, but it's hard to read that. In any case, water buried that deep probably inaccessible for spreading itself outside of Titan. How would you get it out?

Re:Habitable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Titan has very good conditions for life

Yeah. Every organism that lives there gets rich from selling oil to the other moons.

New stuff

[Chris Burke]

Yeah, it's only showing up again because Cassini made another Enceladus flyby in late 09 and they're just releasing the pictures.

This JPL article gives a better idea of what was new this flyby.

A new map that combines heat data with visible-light images shows a 40-kilometer (25-mile) segment of the longest tiger stripe, known as Baghdad Sulcus. The map illustrates the correlation, at the highest resolution yet seen, between the geologically youthful surface fractures and the anomalously warm temperatures that have been recorded in the south polar region. The broad swaths of heat previously detected by the infrared spectrometer appear to be confined to a narrow, intense region no more than a kilometer (half a mile) wide along the fracture.

So basically, higher resolution images have allowed them to isolate the heat that they detected earlier (from the 2005 flyby) as a "broad swath" to specifically the cracks in the surface from which water is spewing, confirming their previous hypothesis.

Obligatory StarTrek quote

[Locke2005]

It's life Jim but not as we know it, not as we know it! For one thing, these guys are living in a giant ice chest, so they are never at a loss for a place to keep their beer cold!

Re:Obligatory StarTrek quote

[Pikoro]

That's not a Star Trek quote! The next line is "There's Klingons off the starboard bow, starboard bow, starboard bow, there's Klingons off the starboard bow, starboard bow Jim."

Star Trekkin'

2010

[pengin9]

2010... the year we find life is possible on saturns? moons. wait wait wait I thought Dave lived on Jupiter.

Awesome

[aplusjimages]

when can we open up a McDonalds and Best Buy?

OMG

[pizzach]

I for one believe we already have enough hospitals. Building them on Saturn would bring no new inherent value.

Thread hijacking, yeah!

[buchner.johannes]

NASA article: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/cassini-20090624.html
picture: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/multimedia/pia06191.html
Video: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/flash/Enceladus/enceladus.html <-- no reading :-)

It'd be awesome to live on a saturn, especially if you have a view of Saturn (how large would it be on the sky?) ... would be pretty dark though, especially if the hot spot is on the south pole.

Btw. it was the Cassini spacecraft that made the flyby.

Habitable? But are they hiring?

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they have any job openings?

Why not fund it yourself?

[elucido]

Rather than tax the middle class to pay for stuff you care about, but which does not really make a difference in peoples lives. Why don't you just gather in a room with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and fund your own space program?

Studying Saturn is a waste of money at this time even if there is life on Saturn's moon. We should focus on stuff which influences life one earth.

Re:Why not fund it yourself?

[Ltap]

You realize what you're saying? That even if we found life on another planet, we should... ignore it? Also, "at this time"? Is there EVER a good time for long-term public projects? Also, if you think the fact that life truly does exist on other planets would not affect society, you're mistaken. If life really was discovered, it could galvanize space exploration and benefit science enormously. So which would you prefer... an over-crowded Earth that has to implement draconian population control measures to save space, or an Earth that is the centre of space exploration and is starting colonies on other worlds?

Re:Why not fund it yourself?

[pnewhook]

Studying Saturn is a waste of money at this time even if there is life on Saturn's moon. We should focus on stuff which influences life one earth.

Yes, lets stop the space program and focus on real issues at home. Wait! Now there's about 100 thousand unemployed people laid off who directly or indirectly worked for the space program! That's much better than wasting time looking at Saturn,

Re:Why not fund it yourself?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks to studying Saturn, we are better able to understand and predict dangerous weather patterns here on Earth. Are you saying that you don't care if people continue to die in hurricanes and other natural disasters?

Re:Why not fund it yourself?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you broke your fallacious window. :(

Re:Why not fund it yourself?

[Paul Fernhout]

"If life really was discovered, it could galvanize space exploration and benefit science enormously."

There is extraterrestrial intelligent life in the oceans (whales, octopods, etc.) and non-Western intelligence on land (elephants, humans in other non-Western countries with different world-views) and the US government seems happy to either ignore, exploit, or kill. So, why should finding out there is life or intelligence elsewhere in the solar system or universe make much of a difference?

That said, I think we should build self-replicating space habitats that can duplicate themselves from sunlight and space materials from asteroids and moons just because they are an optimistic idea, really cool, and also likely to provide new useful ideas back to Earth. :-)
    http://www.openvirgle.net/

Re:Why not fund it yourself?

[Ltap]

Because when most people think of extraterrestrial life, they think of green men from Mars and E.T., and laugh uproariously. The fact that life really has been proven to exist on other planets/moons (very few regular people have heard of the Drake Equation) would be a revelation to most of them.

As well, we study life obsessively. Biology is a gigantic field. Life on Earth is (somewhat) easily accessible to us. If there was life that we had trouble accessing for the purpose of studying it, then there would be a drive for faster and cheaper space travel to study it. Right now, when most people think of space, they think of dead rocks. If life was proven to exist, there would be very few people who weren't interested.

Re:Why not fund it yourself?

[Paul Fernhout]

I am not disagreeing that information about space or life in other places would be interesting. These days I tend to think that bacteria came from outside the solar system myself, given how hardy bacteria is, and how statistically it would just be more likely it came from elsewhere with one small Earth and one big universe. I'm disagreeing with how compelling that would be as a call to action in current US society. As in, "Oh, gee, cute seamonsters on Europa. Now, what kind of cosmetics should we be producing to make the most money?"
http://www.skininc.com/treatments/cosmetics/16814576.html
"Global color cosmetics sales reached $36.8 billion in 2007, ..."

It has been said more people have walked on the Moon than have been to the bottom of the "deep ocean floor".
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_part_of_the_ocean_has_been_least_explored

We even have AI about to emerge seriously in twenty years or so (let alone new human/machine hybrids). Big yawn by most people.
http://www.transhumanist.com/volume1/moravec.htm

Frankly, the world would probably be a better place if we took all that money that goes into a search for life in space and put it towards helping understand and preserve life around Earth. One example of where the money would be better spent:
http://www.mel.nist.gov/programs/slim.htm
"The United States needs to prepare for a future where products are 100% recyclable, manufacturing itself has a zero net impact on the environment, and complete disassembly and disposal of a product at its end of life is routine."

A few hundred billion spent on sustainable and resilient infrastructure done in a free and open source way, would let us bootstrap our civilization to the stars. In that sense, all the money spend on big science of other sorts has just kept us from creating space habitats. Related, on my own (self-funded) efforts to that end:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1563102&cid=31279590

Basically, the scientists at NASA have politically triumphed over the engineers. So, NASA does amazing scientific experiments with, for the most part, 1960s technology, with lots of money for science but comparatively little for innovation (and of course, the Shuttle has eaten up most of NASA's budget in general, anyway, so the engineers and scientists were just fighting over scraps left over). And beyond that, there are records showing how NASA has from the start been primarily funded for military goals (to demonstrate intimidating technical leadership):
http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK+Library+and+Museum/News+and+Press/JFK+Library+Releases+White+House+Tape+on+Space+Race.htm
http://www.thespacereview.com/article/735/1
"We know that such recordings can shed substantial light on Kennedy's thinking on space because of another tape that was released five years ago and gained a surprising amount of media attention in the sleepy month of August 2001. That recording, number 60 in the Kennedy Library, concerned a November 1962 meeting between Kennedy, Webb, and several other top White House and NASA officials to discuss the NASA budget. During that meeting, Kennedy made the comment that "I'm not that interested in space..." explaining that he supported the lunar program because it was a race against the Soviets: "the Soviet Union has made this a test of the system. So that's why we're doing it," Kennedy explained."

O

Re:Why not fund it yourself?

[Ltap]

There's a flaw in your logic. You're saying that "well, if we can develop tech on Earth that is highly advanced, we should wait and use this highly advanced tech in space." The problem is that a lot of stuff that's used in space has to do with aeronautics, which is a failing industry. Problems like the consumption of large amounts of expensive rocket fuel and the constant maintenance that space shuttles require would not be addressed in your model, since these are essentially rocketry and aeronautics problems, which is not an area many people are interested in.

The problem is that most tech to do with space has to be specially developed. It's an uphill battle. Our main barriers aren't miniaturization or computer technology, it's:
1: Life support (making humans able to survive for long periods of time in space), an almost entirely space-specific problem
2: Fast propulsion without requiring massive amounts of fuel (aerospace problem).

Re:Why not fund it yourself?

[Paul Fernhout]

I don't agree, for some specific reasons. Cheaper energy sources on Earth would lower the energy costs of space launches. Better materials would make many space ventures easier, like if we had nanotech diamanoid for rocket jet coatings (and we would develop better materials in support of resiliency and sustainability on Earth). Better recycling and 3D printing would make space habitats more feasible. Improved robotic mining technology on Earth would pave the way for mining the Moon and the asteroids. All those things help solve the life-support problem in space, which has a lot to do with mining and recycling and local production of supplies. We already know how to launch rockets. What we need to know are how to make things in a systematic way in a very small local economy using 100% recycling and renewable energy. Those are things that also benefit Earth. It's a win/win for at least 90% overlap (guessing). Why focus on the expensive and harder 10% first that is essentially useless anyway without the 90% of lifesupport where there is overlap? Anyway, we have billions of people living in relative material poverty. Developing small scale industrial systems (nanotech, biotech, robotics, 3D printing, etc.) that let materially poor people bootstrap themselves up to a current US material standard of living from just some small seed fabrication labs would be a great challenge for NASA-types (hopefully while still having socially healthier communities than in the USA). After that was made to work, then we could think about adapting those ideas to work on the Moon or Mars or the Asteroids or the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. As outlined here:
    http://www.islandone.org/MMSG/aasm/
And frankly, if technologists can't figure out how to bootstrap poor communities into abundance using self-replicating technology in places with air and water and moderate temperatures, what does that say about the likelihood of any such technology being made to work well in space? It's really a win/win, at least for the next decade or two. Then when we have an entire planet that is well fed and with plenty of material resources, space exploration can be a great hobby for everyone. :-) It is always an issue to decide how much resources to spend now on something you want to do directly vs. how much to invest to have more capability in the future. I'm saying that we would get more done sooner in space if we invested more in a high-tech industrial base on Earth right now -- one that was both sustainable and resilient.

Again, if we redirected some of the massive government spending that goes towards defense and instead used it to make the entire world prosperous using space age technology, then we would not even need to cut back NASA's current science plans.

NASA is searching for life...

[SystemFault]

NASA is searching for life in Congress for support of a planetary science budget, so these announcements must be taken with a big dose of sodium chloride.

Back in 1976, NASA flew the twin Viking missions to Mars, each with its own orbiter and stationary lander. All were quite successful. But at what a cost: something close to a cool billion dollars back then; that would be maybe four or five billion today. And there was another cost. To get support for the mission, NASA had to drum up expectations of finding some positive result from the life detection experiments on board and so these experiments took up most of the scientific payload at the expense of the more usual array of geophysical instruments. No life signs were found, the popular press declared a failure, and serious funding for Mars exploration dried up for nearly twenty years.

The more recent NASA probes including Pathfinder, Odyssey, Phoenix, and the twin rovers have all done extremely well and have in total produced far, far more science per dollar than did Viking. These probes have done so in part because the emphasis wasn't on life detection -- iffy at best -- but on good old geology and chemistry experiments that were guaranteed to produce lots of valuable knowledge no matter what.

Could NASA be setting itself up for another Viking-like episode with tales of possible life on Europa and Enceladus? Could life-detection instruments once again shove aside less exciting but more productive geophysical experiments? Since Congress is inhabited mostly by the scientifically illiterate, you can guess how I'll bet.

But what KIND of life?

[DynaSoar]

The surface shows small jets of water open to atmosphere. There are also closed regions with a higher temperature, possibly due to endothermic reactions.

Enceladus is showing signs of having been colonized by a fairly sedentary life form symbiotic with large populations of other species incapable of manipulating their own environment adequately: Enceladus appears to be breaking out in sewage treatment plants.
 

Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they have Linux over there?

Great opportunity for Walmart

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

Walmart is already looking at a few proposed locations on Enceladus. The clientele might look a bit strange compared to Earth based customers. Expect to see scores of people in pressed shirts and pants, conservative jewelry, and clean shoes.

Obligatory..

[Anonymous Coward]

That's no moon.

Only NASA

[DarthVain]

Could look a a planet that is venting water into space around "warm" spots of -100 as "hospitable" to life.

Sure its no vacuum in space, but it sure is hell ain't the forest moon of Endor either.

Let me know when you find care bears and I'll get interested.

John Spencer?

[Anonymous Coward]

Blues Explosion, man!

What? Oh.

Come on!

[Locke2005]

Next you'll be telling me that "He's dead, Jim... you get his tricorder, I'll get his wallet!" isn't a direct quote from StarTrek either!