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.'"

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.

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.

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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

[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.