'Life May Have Everything It Needs to Exist on Saturn's Moon Enceladus' (nasa.gov) 27
An anonymous reader shared this report from CNN:
Scientists have long viewed Saturn's moon Enceladus, which harbors an ocean beneath its thick, icy shell, as one of the best places to search for life beyond Earth. Now, a new analysis of data collected by NASA's Cassini mission, which orbited Saturn and its moons between 2004 and 2017, has uncovered intriguing evidence that further supports the idea of Enceladus as a habitable ocean world.
Enceladus initially captured the attention of scientists in 2005 because plumes of ice grains and water vapor were observed rising through cracks in the moon's ice shell and releasing into space. The spacecraft flew through the plumes and "sampled" them, with data suggesting the presence of organic compounds within the plumes, some of which are key for life. The latest data analysis of Cassini's flybys of Enceladus revealed the detection of a molecule called hydrogen cyanide that's toxic to humans but crucial to processes driving the origin of life. What's more, the team also found evidence to support that Enceladus' ocean has organic compounds that provide a source of chemical energy that could potentially be used as powerful fuel for any form of life...
The combination of these elements together suggested a process called methanogenesis, or the metabolic creation of methane, may be at play on Enceladus. Scientists suspect methanogenesis may have also played out on early Earth, contributing to the origin of life. But the new research indicates more varied and powerful chemical energy sources are occurring within Enceladus' ocean... Now, the study authors want to investigate how diluted the organic compounds are within the subsurface ocean because the dilution of these compounds could determine whether Enceladus could support life. In the future, astronomers hope to send a dedicated mission to investigate Enceladus, which could provide a definitive answer as to whether life exists in the ocean world.
"Our work provides further evidence that Enceladus is host to some of the most important molecules for both creating the building blocks of life and for sustaining that life through metabolic reactions," accoding to one of the study's lead authors.
"Not only does Enceladus seem to meet the basic requirements for habitability, we now have an idea about how complex biomolecules could form there, and what sort of chemical pathways might be involved."
Enceladus initially captured the attention of scientists in 2005 because plumes of ice grains and water vapor were observed rising through cracks in the moon's ice shell and releasing into space. The spacecraft flew through the plumes and "sampled" them, with data suggesting the presence of organic compounds within the plumes, some of which are key for life. The latest data analysis of Cassini's flybys of Enceladus revealed the detection of a molecule called hydrogen cyanide that's toxic to humans but crucial to processes driving the origin of life. What's more, the team also found evidence to support that Enceladus' ocean has organic compounds that provide a source of chemical energy that could potentially be used as powerful fuel for any form of life...
The combination of these elements together suggested a process called methanogenesis, or the metabolic creation of methane, may be at play on Enceladus. Scientists suspect methanogenesis may have also played out on early Earth, contributing to the origin of life. But the new research indicates more varied and powerful chemical energy sources are occurring within Enceladus' ocean... Now, the study authors want to investigate how diluted the organic compounds are within the subsurface ocean because the dilution of these compounds could determine whether Enceladus could support life. In the future, astronomers hope to send a dedicated mission to investigate Enceladus, which could provide a definitive answer as to whether life exists in the ocean world.
"Our work provides further evidence that Enceladus is host to some of the most important molecules for both creating the building blocks of life and for sustaining that life through metabolic reactions," accoding to one of the study's lead authors.
"Not only does Enceladus seem to meet the basic requirements for habitability, we now have an idea about how complex biomolecules could form there, and what sort of chemical pathways might be involved."
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Well, some people, like Elon Musk claim we have to decide between wanting to evolve and not wanting to be evil. The two are incompatible in the faux-logicians mind. As in, they think fighting things out optimizes for intelligence, "civilizedness", and long term survivability when it really doesn't.
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I think the day has come when we should stop listening to anything he has to say.
Think of baseball (Score:1)
this is why we are not out there in space discovering new worlds. We are here killing each other and fighting each other over who's god is the real god.
No, the OP is just some sad teen living in his mommy's basement, posting absurd scenarios to see if weak minded individuals will comment and give him a cheap thrill.
Congratulations, your post gave him the mental handjob he was seeking. The best way to stop those posts is to just stop commenting on them.
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Technically yes. The internet is defined as:
Internet /in(t)rnet/
noun
a global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols.
So that global body may have it's own official internet.
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Re: Even internet? (Score:1)
Yes, but it's really slow with lots of delays, even slower than Comcast on some days.
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They have enchiladas, a way better predictor of life than any internet.
How high are the tides? (Score:2)
They say there are seas on that moon, Unless that moon is already in tidal lock like ours, I wonder how high the tides would be in those seas given that Saturn must have quite a gravitational pull. Anybody cares to do the calculations?
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"harbors an ocean beneath its thick, icy shell", did you see that part?
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I live up North and "thick icy shells" raise and go down with the tides so not sure about the point you are trying to make.
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I'm pointing out that while there may be water it isn't in the form of 'seas', and the ice is likely to be kilometers thick. Enceladus is only about 300 miles in diameter and it is tidal locked to Saturn.
Re:How high are the tides? (Score:5, Informative)
They say there are seas on that moon, Unless that moon is already in tidal lock like ours, I wonder how high the tides would be in those seas given that Saturn must have quite a gravitational pull. Anybody cares to do the calculations?
The moon is tidally locked, but because of the gravitational perturbations of Dione it has a slightly eccentric orbit, and this eccentricity gives it tides from Saturn.
The tidal friction is why the ocean under the ice isn't frozen.
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Thanks! You're the man!
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well, at least he put a /sarcasm tag at the end, so we know that the cluelessness was intended as sarcasm, and not just random internet cluelessness.
Yeah, it was parody rather than sarcasm, but wasn't very good as parody, either.
no way (Score:2)
Wildest neighborhood in the solar system, by far. (Score:5, Interesting)
While we speculate about prokaryotes clinging to the barest life under Mars or in Europan brine, there could be an organic chemistry zoo hiding in plain sight around the actual Lord of the Rings.
Moving there would be a stupid, futile gesture (Score:2)
Because it doesn't matter whether you hail from the US East or West Coast, there's no Shake Shack or In-n-Out Burger on Enceladus, so how can anyone ever claim, 'Life May Have Everything It Needs to Exist on Saturn's Moon Enceladus'.
Most compelling (Score:2)
Enceladus and Europa are the most compelling to places in the solar system to be putting landers, as far as I can tell. Mars is great, but those moons have potential for real, actual life, right now. This plume run by Cassini seems a prelude to what we'd get with the ELF mission. The question is whether the current evidence is compelling enough to argue for a lander to complement the ELF plume fly-throughs.
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Titan is up there too, in terms of possible life. Methane rivers and lakes, rocky surface and thick atmosphere. The later makes it easy to land on compared to a lot of places. We've gotten one lander there already and Dragonfly, a rotary aircraft, is in development. With the thick atmosphere and lower gravity a flying drone is easier to pull off compared to a rolling rover.
Do we even know how life started here? (Score:2)