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Saturn's Moon Enceladus Has Underground Ocean
astroengine (1577233) writes "Gravity measurements made with the Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft indicate the small moon Enceladus has an ocean sandwiched between its rocky core and icy shell, a finding that raises the prospects of a niche for life beyond Earth. The Cassini data shows the body of water, which is in the moon's southern hemisphere, must be as large or larger than Lake Superior and sitting on top of the moon's rocky core at a depth of about 31 miles. 'The ocean may extend halfway or more toward the equator in every direction,' said planetary scientist David Stevenson, with the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena."
Obligatory SMBC
Enceladus has an ocean sandwiched between its rocky core and icy shell, a finding that raises the prospects of a niche for life beyond Earth
that's stuff that matters, no?
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Its a tiny moon with very little energy internally and the rocky core has probably remained unchanged since the solar system was formed which means its unlikely to have much in the way of complex chemicals to kickstart anything. I doubt there's any subduction of the ice crust like on Europa so there's no way for anything to get down there either. If I was to lay money on it I'd say that water was about as sterile as you can get.
But I hope I'm wrong.
In my perfect world, everybody would care and I'd have seen this in the morning news.
It's yesterday's news, so it would be stale by this morning. Or do you read dead trees?
BBC had it on the front page last night.
...on the monolith declaring "All your worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landing there."
"Oh, and also Enceladus on the next planet over. Thanks!"
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
With the absolute global meltdown of religion that would likely happen in the event of the world learning that life exists beyond our planet
I doubt it. Religions have a long history of adapting their scriptures to whichever situation they find themselves in. "God created the Heavens and the Earth. That includes Enceladus, right? And He didn't say He didn't create other life, right? Know what this means? We need donations for an interplanetary missionary mission!"
With the absolute global meltdown of religion that would likely happen in the event of the world learning that life exists beyond our planet, literally shattering damn near every major religion's core belief of a sky daddy/master creator/Adam and Eve, I really do wonder if we would ever hear such a confirmation out of NASA.
You have religious people denying evolution. For extraterrestrial life to be relevant it has to be visible with the bare eye, alien enough to clearly not be from earth and you have to bring it alive to the very presence of the religious person to prove that it isn't fake.
As fun as formal proof is, proving something to another person is an entirely different beast. If they don't want it proven they can deny every argument you bring up indefinitely. Summoning hell-spawn demon-beasts from another planet aren't going to change their beliefs, they are just going to be more convinced that you are evil.
That's a HUUUUUGEE set of massive leaps... wtf. and they wonder why people don't trust "science".
Nobody wonders why ignorant people don't trust science. The reason is simple and ever unchanging. It's because they are ignorant.
Magma.
Molten ice.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
the surface of a distant moon using sensors from a very long distance away, but we can't find a Boeing 777 that crashed right under our noses?
With the absolute global meltdown of religion that would likely happen in the event of the world learning that life exists beyond our planet, literally shattering damn near every major religion's core belief of a sky daddy/master creator/Adam and Eve,
Why would it "shatter" anything? It may change some things. I'm sure you would probably consider me a religious nut job. But I have no issue with evolution, or that the age of the earth is 4.5 billion years (give or take). There is no where in the bible that says the earth is 6K years. That was a very flawed inference to begin with. I also would not be surprised if what many of us believe is god turns out to be an advanced alien, or alien race. If we brought someone from from biblical times to our time, they'd probably think we were gods. Just imaging if they met a non-corporeal being or even something like the Vorlons from B5. I'm not sure there wouldn't be a large portion of the population even today who wouldn't worship them.
It really depends on what is found. If we found some sort of basic or animal life, then it very well could impact people's religious views. Is it going to change my parent's minds? Of course not. They are 60+ and so fundamentally tuned that they would explain it away but for the younger generations that are already leaving churches, abandoning formal religion etc., it would probably play a role in altering the religious landscape. If we found intelligent life that we could communicate with, that would be a completely different matter. Imagine that these beings have such advanced medicine that they can somehow revive someone that has died or instantly cure the most advanced cancer we know of or create life. At that point, some people might say they are the "God" we've always worshiped but what are we going to say when they deny that and tell us that it is their science etc. that has given them those abilities...
Agreed. It wouldn't be a big deal at all. I really wish it would, for the lulz, but it won't. :-(
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
because he wants to live out his captain Kirk fantasy of banging a green skinned alien woman.
And what's so wrong with that? ;^)
Can't wait to ingest some enceladian alien bugs that will protect me from radiation!