A satellite will be passing by Saturn and its moons within the next few days, it should be interesting to see what they find as well. Better check the pics as they are updated before the controversial ones are deleted...

This should be interesting. I havent herd of it though.

Well if there's water, there's life!. I think if It's most likley Europa that has life we should send an opprotunity there.

This was one of the premises of Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2010 [the sequel to 2000-Space Odessy].
There were squid things living under the ice that were beginng to evolve intellegence.
Life is where ever you find it......

Originally posted by AD5673
Well if there's water, there's life!. I think if It's most likley Europa that has life we should send an opprotunity there.

Dude, I sincerely hope that you were just being sarcastic with that comment. Because there is no evidence to suggest that outside of earth that water has ANY bearing on the formation of life. Only narrow-minded scientists can come up with some half-baked idea as that.

But before I get flamed, I'm not accusing you of anything; I'm just saying that water isn't necessarilly a pre-requisite for life. It is for life like that here on Earth, but why should we immediately assume that ALL life is similar to our own? Doesn't that just seem a bit close-minded to anyone but me?

The Borg,

Thats true about water, it may not be the only carrier of life, everywhere in
the Universe.

BUT, the only life we know, IS on the cycle of water. so, we KNOW that
works. And we know the temperature range.

SO, where there is water the CAN be life..

Bacteria can be considered "life" so don't you all get your hopes up and go grabbing any "We LOVE Aliens" t-shirts.

spacedoubt is correct about the possibility of life being in the water of Europa. It's a great possibility.

Wrong..
Water was absolutely crucial in the early days of the earth for mainstream life production
It has a certain quality, of being the only liquid, which expands when frozen.
Somehow, derived from this (I dont quite understand, I'm sure there are scientists on here who do), only the top layer of water freezes, whereas everything below will continue to run (if it's running water)... Example, rivers (obviously if it gets TOO cold it will solid freeze).
This little allowance to us by nature meant that life wouldnt die of hypothermia during the ice age(s), and allowed for less-disturbed life production
It has relatively important bearing on us, it helps dilute the blood, it has osmosis properities which are important to help regulate blood density (through places like the kidneys)...
water is not the only carrier, but so far, out of all the planets we know that support life, water has a 100% success rate!

This was an episode of Horizon that mentioned this a while ago. After the discovery of Lake Vostok,in Antarctica,under the ice, and the discovery of dead organisms frozen into the bottom layer of ice this theory came about. The possibilty of life non solar dependant is real. Life was found in a sealed cave under a romanian rubbish dump. Many different insects were found, and lived off a scum found on the water of a hot spring in the cave.

Dude, I sincerely hope that you were just being sarcastic with that comment.

I was.. but water is the source of life. You need water. Ofcourse maybe not all orgamisms need it, how the hell do we know? But if there is water there is life. The aliens dont have to be Big, with two hands... They could be microscopic, and perhaps building cities?? Who knows. We would just have to examine them closley...

Originally posted by herm


This was one of the premises of Arthur C. Clarke's novel 2010 [the sequel to 2000-Space Odessy].
There were squid things living under the ice that were beginng to evolve intellegence.
Life is where ever you find it......

Dammit I thought I would get to be the first to bring that up! Ah anyways yeah they were squidish-plantlike things that lived under the ice.

I'll put in my own two ¢ about the water=life idea. First off, we compare all the ideas of life on other planets with our idea of life on Earth. But not all planets having life will be even remotely similar to earth, they could be completely water-void! That idea of course requires that you think ouside the box, but some people need to do that once in a while.

Secondly, bacteria is life, as Sinobyte said before me. Viruses on the other hand, while I myself believe them to be living, are debated among scientists as to their biological state.

Europa is the number 1 contestant in our solar system to contain life in my books (and before the smartasses say "What about Earth?" I will add that I mean outside of our planet )

I saw on one of the discovery shows..they [ nasa] are supposed to be sending a mini sub to penetrait the ice n roam the supposed sea...would be kinda cool if they found say creatures like ...episode 1....best part of that movie

DArn wish I knew more about it sounds really cool. I had no idea Europa was covered in ice

I won't be all that surprised if we find some form primitive microbial life in our Solar system. This kind of discovery is a heck of a lot more believable than the fanciful notion of pyramids on Mars. I can't wiat for the huygens prob to do its job.

This might be off topic but if Other life was fount wouldent go agianest ur religion????

no.

Originally posted by Opus
I can't wiat for the huygens prob to do its job.

Neither can I, it should be spectacular, as we can only speculate at this point about what lies beneath the clouds...I have read speculation about hydrocarbon lakes/seas...cool

Though if we only find microscopic organisms, couldnt they be smart enough to also build microscopic cities?