Radio Wave on Saturn's Moon Hints at Hidden Ocean

SleepyHappyDoc writes "The European Space Agency has announced that a mysterious radio wave may indicate the existence of a hidden ocean underneath the surface of Titan. The Cassini-Huygens spaceprobe, which entered Titan's atmosphere over two years ago, collected evidence and information which has led to this potential discovery. This technology may lead to entirely new ways of finding out information about other planets."

I thought Titan was a MOON (or a "satellite")

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

...a mysterious radio wave may indicate the existence of a hidden ocean underneath the surface of Titan.... This technology may lead to entirely new ways of finding out information about other planets.

I thought Titan was a MOON (or a "satellite")

How long 'till proof of life?

[Leontes]

Ok. We have many extra-solar planets. We've got water on mars. We've got an ocean on titan. We've got massive amounts of funding on SETI. We had that SETI at home running for years... Despite that now-pretty-much-debunked mars metorite... When is that we will find believable proof of extraterra life? I'm convinced life has to be out there. When we will find it? I doubt we will find it anytime soon. We aren't spending enough money and we aren't capable of leaving this island world of ours. Intelligent life that we can communicate with or interact with in a meaningful? Highly unlikely. The universe is just too damn big and the chances of intelligence development too small. We may have found an ocean on titan: I really wish the task of finding extraterresterial life wasn't so minimal.

wait...

[jcgam69]

The next step for the researchers is to determine if the signal detected was the result of an error in the probe.

Shouldn't you do that first before making a major announcement to the world press??

The answer is in genesis

[oni]

No, not *that* genesis (but I made you look, didn't I). The answer to the question, "why haven't we found life yet" really lies in the fact that what actually gets life going is still quite a mystery. As you know, scientists can simulate the conditions of early Earth and they can produce amino acids, but they can't produce DNA or simple cellular life.

My point is, we may still be missing something important and fundamental. That's what makes science so interesting. There is always something else to discover.

In Dawkins' book, The Blind Watchmaker, he makes reference to the work of another biologist whose name escapes me at the moment. But that guy's theory is that silicate crystals in soft clay are the necessary to get early life going. The theory goes like this: imagine a river with clay at the bottom. The clay forms microscopic crystals, which sometimes catch and constrain amino acids and other building blocks, like stuff getting stuck in the strainer in your sink.

As the crystals grow, they sometimes "empty the strainer" basically spitting out these now larger strands of amino acids. The strands and structures flow further down the river and inevitably get stuck in another crystal. There they grow larger and eventually get spit out. The process repeats all the way down the river.

At the mouth of the river, you've got billions of different pre-biotic experiments washing out into the sea. Just by chance, one of those experiments is able to reproduce itself. Life is unstoppable at that point.

So what I'm getting at is this: we keep finding *some* of the building blocks, but we aren't finding them arranged the correct way. A static sea (maybe even with hydrothermal vents) on Titan or Europa or Mars may be able to support current Earth life, but it may not be able to spark that all-important genesis event.

On the other hand, early Mars may have been perfect for this.