BREAKING: Complex Organic Molecules Discovered on Enceladus For The First Time

a reply to: Blue Shift

pretty much this
and it would mean that we humans are a experiment and that the universe was created by a intelligence after all!

originally posted by: Sheesh
a reply to: neoholographic

But why, when we seem to find organic molecules, planets in the right position, water everywhere we look, don't we see a single shred of even a hint of life anywhere capable of radio transmissions or anything like that?
I mean, if we clearly saw that our planet is something really special, I could understand, but it isn't.

Have you *wandered* around our planet for any length of time?! This place is such a hellhole, I'd not want to let the lunatics living on this rock know where anyone else is, either. I'm willing to bet there's some sort of quarantine field around us that filters out anything like signals, etc- and ships are sent in to check on the residents of the asylum- to make sure they're not trying to escape.

originally posted by: projectvxn

originally posted by: lostbook
a reply to: neoholographic

I've been saying for years that BC Enceladus has life. Now I feel vindicated

Why would you feel vindicated?

They didn't announce the discovery of life. Only complex organic compounds. That isn't analogous to life.

The admission of "complex" organic compounds is pretty much an admission of life if you ask me.

OK. Let's say you fund some microbial life on some moon. So? Why is this so amazing and exciting? It's kind of like, duh! there's life elsewhere, just like everyone has been saying forever. If you find life that talks back, wake me.

a reply to: Soylent Green Is People
I think that between Arthur C Clarke and Douglas Adams, most eventualities have been considered.

originally posted by: DBCowboy

originally posted by: CreationBro
a reply to: neoholographic

The sooner we explore Enceladus, Europa, Ganymede, Titan, and Mars, in depth, the sooner the better....

“All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landing there."

Bah now you’ve got me wanting to reread the book and movies you’ve booked my free time for a week, ya making commission on this?

a reply to: lostbook

The admission of "complex" organic compounds is pretty much an admission of life if you ask me.

No, it isn't.

Source

Organic compounds are any molecules that are composed of the element carbon. The four main groups of carbon molecules of life are the most complex organic compounds: proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, and nucleic acids. All complex organic molecules are polymers. ... Essentially, polymers are complexes of monomers.

Intergalactic sushi.

...and you thought Kobe beef was expensive.

a reply to: Sheesh

Because of the size of the universe.

This has alien life written all over it.

Great news!

a reply to: Sheesh

Sheesh...

There are an awful lot of factors playing into this.

First, and chief amongst them all, is the sheer expanse of space/time as we know it. You have to understand that contrary to the skewed ideas that science fiction places in the heads of human beings, the scale of the universe itself is one of the most thorny problems that we have, when it comes to identifying planets that can definitely sustain life. For example, right now, the best we can do is establish what is in the atmosphere of distant planets. Everything outside our own solar system is so incredibly far away, that the best we can do is to use gravitational lensing, to discover what resides within the gases surrounding a given solid body, and although that teaches us a great deal, it does NOT tell us, in detail and without question, where the gas particulates came from, only that they are present. Its worth mentioning that just FINDING the planet to begin with, regardless of where it is relative to the Goldilocks zone of its star, is an enormously complicated undertaking, and that is before we start to consider the composition of its atmosphere.

Secondly, it is important to consider that space/time contains two main features, those being the space and the time. Space is obviously a barrier, but so is time, a very big one. Civilisations could have come and gone a great many times in the wider universe, and unless we just happened to be in the right spot with regard to where our planet is within the dance of stars, we might never happen across a signal of any kind. You only have to look at how hard it is for space agencies to maintain contact with objects within THIS solar system, to discover just how incredibly complicated the matter actually is.

Then you have to think about the evolution of thought. While nature itself may develop like solutions when presented with like problems, sentience which transcends the natural order (which is what humanity really is when you boil it down), has a unique property which pushes creatures possessed of it, to come up with various solutions to problems, yes, based on how their environment frames the questions, but also based on how the individual has grown in other ways. Some people on Earth solve problems by clever application of human resources, some solve problems by way of rapidly constructing mechanical solutions. Therefore, its easy to imagine that hypothetical alien species, will NOT always use communications methods that we would necessarily spot out there in the cosmos. For example, the human race is only just now beginning to lift the lid on quantum entanglement, and the promise it holds for the future of communication and computing. Its in its very early, sub infant stages at this point, barely a zygote of a concept... but all technology started this way... The thing is, that use of a properly developed, fully realised quantum entanglement based communications system, would render communications between worlds on which this method had been adopted, near enough invisible from here on Earth. Lets say that someone IS out there... its perfectly possible that their culture sent its radio messages so long back in time, that the radiowaves have already passed our planet by, and have moved on to communications methods which leave no readily apparent signature that could be hacked or traced.

The scale of the universe presents us with challenges, but it also provides a rich palate of possibilities, when it comes to the evolution of life and indeed the thought which defines intelligence apart from mere existence. We MUST NOT assume that technology on other worlds, developed by other civilisations, operates in a way that we would be familiar with. We shouldn't discount the possibility, but we should absolutely avoid relying on these things as being the be all and end all for proof of life.

This makes me wonder.

We seem to be finding more possibilities of life on moons than we are on planets.


Perhaps earth was actually a moon at somepoint?

Then again im old, and I know not much of the universe other than my schooling

a reply to: SailorJerry

If the idea of Earth having been in orbit of something other than the sun interests you, although the theory does not QUITE hold with that idea in specificity, you might want to check out Theia.

en.wikipedia.org...(planet)

Its all theory at the moment, but people are working on the idea that this planet we live on, is in fact the remains of two planets, smashed together, with the moon having been a chunk that got blasted out of the whole, as the two large bodies materials mixed together to form this planet. The people who formulated the theory, suggest that Gaia and Theia collided, and the result was what we know as Earth, and our ever present grey friend.

The reason I said this is not a precise match to your idea, is that whether Theia and the Earth were bound orbitally or not at some stage, Theia is supposed to have been smaller than Gaia, so if they had spent time doing the dance cosmic together, Theia would technically have been a moon of Gaia and not the other way around. How they would have collided with enough force to meld the two into what we know as the Earth, and cause the creation of the Moon in the process, whilst locked in an orbital spiral however, is another question. To my mind, it would make more sense for Theia to have come right out of left field, at a relative pace uncommon to an orbit around Gaia, in order to make that happen, but its worth a look anyway!

Wow, Cassini was retired September last year, and we still get groundbreaking science from its data! :-o

Yes, I'm a strong supporter of the idea that Enceladus and Europa are habitable, and may even have life.

originally posted by: wylekat

originally posted by: Sheesh
a reply to: neoholographic

But why, when we seem to find organic molecules, planets in the right position, water everywhere we look, don't we see a single shred of even a hint of life anywhere capable of radio transmissions or anything like that?
I mean, if we clearly saw that our planet is something really special, I could understand, but it isn't.

Have you *wandered* around our planet for any length of time?!

Even more, walk along an empty beach. More grains of sand under your feet than stars in the sky, teeming with signs of evolved life, barely perceptible. Look out across the vast wide ocean, to the distant, empty, horizon. Up towards the brilliant blue sky, as endless as it is cloudless. The ocean breeze sweeping across you, bringing with it the sounds of the sea bird life. The waters of the open sea gently washing over your feet; that thing that is infinite to the eye, is between your toes.

Not much of radio transmissions or anything like that, there either..

It's only a matter of time before we discover extra terrestrial life. Our technology is continually advancing bringing us that much closer to our goal.

I honestly feel the discovery will be made within the next 10yrs.

originally posted by: lostbook
The admission of "complex" organic compounds is pretty much an admission of life if you ask me.

Maybe if it was admitted by the complex organic compounds themselves. Otherwise, I sneeze out complex organic compounds all the time in the form of snot, and it's not alive.

a reply to: Sheesh

A smart race that want's to survive doesnt advertise their presence.

a reply to: Blue Shift

Bacteria coming out ya nose is considered alive, look it up. Deny ignorance

a reply to: TheConstruKctionofLight

Bacteria coming out ya nose is considered alive, look it up. Deny ignorance

Ok sure, but let's not muddy the waters here with irrelevant tropes.

In this case complex organic compounds can be something like methane. There are two known processes that produce methane, biology and geology.

I'm not sure what kinds of complex organic compounds were found in the plumes, but if its anything like methane or other compounds, then it isn't necessarily indicative of life.