Saturn's Moons: Spacecraft Finds Evidence of a Frozen Saltwater Ocean

Saturn's Moons: Spacecraft Finds Evidence of a Frozen Saltwater Ocean

www.time.com

The only thing a looking-glass place like Enceladus lacks is life, and at the moment there's no evidence that the moon is home to any biology at all. But a paper just released in the journal Nature brings even that remote possibility at least a little bit closer. According to the new findings, it's now more certain than ever that Enceladus is home to a vast ocean of saltwater just beneath its frozen rind — and it's in oceans similar to that that life emerged here on Earth.

(visit the link for the full news article)

A little moon so deep in space ought not be able to keep a water ocean from freezing since it is too distant from the sun to feel any solar heat and too small to have a molten or sufficiently radioactive core. But two of Enceladus' sister moons, Tethys and Dione, provide some help.

Every time those nearby satellites fly by, they give Enceladus a gravitational pluck, causing it to flex and stretch slightly. This tidal pumping generates a lot of heat — in the same way that a wire hanger can grow too hot to touch when you bend it back and forth rapidly. That not only keeps the water liquefied and, perhaps, warm, it also leads to the volcanic geysers that feed the rings.

This is simply amazing. The possibility of any biological life forms on another planet is fantastic but for it to be so close to home, right it our own Milky Way galaxy just makes this so much more interesting.

"This finding is a crucial new piece of evidence showing that environmental conditions favorable to the emergence of life can be sustained on icy bodies orbiting gas giant planets," said Cassini project scientist Nicolas Altobelli of the European Space Agency.

www.time.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by Misoir


Its about time we heard we something scientific about the possibilities of life elsewhere. I mean come on recently its been very quiet and you know what happens after a quiet lull. My guess is that come end of the year NASA will ask for funding to focus on finding microscopic life around Saturn. Which BTW they have known about for the some time. Great article, its about time the public knows that life exists in other places other than our precious rock.

Im sure there is plenty of life in the Milky Way. What makes this interesting is that its in our own solar system.

Originally posted by Misoir

A little moon so deep in space ought not be able to keep a water ocean from freezing since it is too distant from the sun to feel any solar heat and too small to have a molten or sufficiently radioactive core. But two of Enceladus' sister moons, Tethys and Dione, provide some help.

Every time those nearby satellites fly by, they give Enceladus a gravitational pluck, causing it to flex and stretch slightly. This tidal pumping generates a lot of heat — in the same way that a wire hanger can grow too hot to touch when you bend it back and forth rapidly. That not only keeps the water liquefied and, perhaps, warm, it also leads to the volcanic geysers that feed the rings.

This is simply amazing. The possibility of any biological life forms on another planet is fantastic but for it to be so close to home, right it our own Milky Way galaxy just makes this so much more interesting.

"This finding is a crucial new piece of evidence showing that environmental conditions favorable to the emergence of life can be sustained on icy bodies orbiting gas giant planets," said Cassini project scientist Nicolas Altobelli of the European Space Agency.

www.time.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Now all we have to do is drill some holes and send some camera's down. Seriously it can't be that hard I'm frickin dying to find out.

I ice fish and drill through the ice on lakes all the time. I don't care if the ice is 10 miles I'm sure NASA could figure out something.

Originally posted by wantsome
Now all we have to do is drill some holes and send some camera's down. Seriously it can't be that hard I'm frickin dying to find out.

I ice fish and drill through the ice on lakes all the time. I don't care if the ice is 10 miles I'm sure NASA could figure out something.

It's been tossed around about a probe to Europa as well
& from what I've read in the past it's going to be tough going
around Jupiter's radiation belts & gravitation well.

The Europa probe's electronics must resist very high radiation levels from Jupiter's powerful radiation belts -- a total dose of 4 megarads over the entire mission, much more than the "Galileo" spacecraft -- and it must also carry out a series of large trajectory maneuvers (totalling 2.5 km/sec), while remaining lightweight.

www.spacedaily.com...

reply to post by don rumsfeld


Your article said the Orbiter was delayed until 2010, is there any update on whether it was launched or not? I didn't see it in the news or on their website, but I have not looked in a while.

Those icy moons have always interested me. The possibility of life, especially on Europa, is not only possible, but is almost probable if it is in fact liquid water underneath that ice.

I feel like those moons should be a higher priority than Mars at this point.

Look at the Earth...

Even in the most inhospitable places, life emerges and constantly surprises us all.

You can burn, flood, rip, annihilate an area on this planet, and life will still find it's way back. It has always proven to be true.

With just this simple, and very real truth, why is it so hard to believe that life can exist almost anywhere in the universe? Is it such a presumption to then say with the right time, sentient life could exist almost anywhere as well?

I think not.

As humans, we should be mastering the creation and nurturing of life, but instead, we master how to destroy it. Let's hope that whatever may be in that frozen salt water ocean does not meet the same fate that we have.

~Namaste

Originally posted by SonOfTheLawOfOne
You can burn, flood, rip, annihilate an area on this planet, and life will still find it's way back. It has always proven to be true.

With just this simple, and very real truth, why is it so hard to believe that life can exist almost anywhere in the universe? Is it such a presumption to then say with the right time, sentient life could exist almost anywhere as well?

The inverse could also be asked, since life finds a way to exist in the most inhospitable of places on earth, why have we found no evidence of it at all elsewhere? It should be in places we've already looked, and it isn't.

I welcome this thread because I think this subject is fascinating and worthy of a read so there is some more information on this to be found here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by SonOfTheLawOfOne


That is true, our species is almost killing itself. I mean it would be a thought to make alien contact, however we can't even sort out our own problems let alone deal with another species.

Can't wait to hear more on this

There are easily several million Earth like planets in our galaxy alone. The amount of lifeforms in our galaxy are beyond numerous. We just lack the ability to traverse space.

If they make an announcement like that then I personally believe we should be looking in the exact opposite direction of Saturn. They are looking to get all those eyes in the sky pointed at Saturn while something probably truly unbelievable and remarkable is happening in the other direction.

Maybe it is true and that would be wonderful if they could really get some good scientific research done and shed some light on the subject at hand.

reply to post by SavedOne


Unfortunately Saturn's moons, nor Mars or the moon is populated by a society or machinery capable of making the same scientific discoveries as we can here on Earth.

And it is in this that you will find your statement invalid.

Originally posted by SonOfTheLawOfOne
Look at the Earth...

Even in the most inhospitable places, life emerges and constantly surprises us all.

Sigh.. this is always brought up as some sort of 'proof' that life must exist everywhere. Sorry, but life exists in those places on earth because it had a chance to slowly migrate to those areas and adapt. Life just didn't pop up in 1000oC waters.

So unless somewhere on these planets there are temperatures to support life as we know it, it does not and will not happen, period.

Originally posted by SavedOne


The inverse could also be asked, since life finds a way to exist in the most inhospitable of places on earth, why have we found no evidence of it at all elsewhere? It should be in places we've already looked, and it isn't.

We may well be looking in the right places, we just might not be looking in the right way

Life evolving on other planets (or moons) might well be completely unrecognisable to us, just because we've developed from carbon based, oxygen breathing microbes who's to say that life has developed along the same lines elsewhere in the cosmos.
Just find a quiet spot in the country on a cloudless, moonless night and lay on your back looking up at the stars, for every star that you can see there are millions that you can't and many (if not most) of those have planets and most of those planets will have moons. I find it impossible to believe that we are the only planet that hosts living creatures.

5 I was wondering, while watching the trapped miners in Chile, WTF is NASA doing coming
to the rescue with huge "drill?" NASA don't do no drillin', mayne!" Then I remembered a scifi flick I watched,
I think it was 2010:the Year we make contact, where there's someone explaining to a group about how "we" (NASA) were going to drill through the ice of europa, could have been the movie "Contact;" nonetheless, it was over ten years ago, and it clicked...that drill NASA sported in Chile was a space drill, well a drill to be used not on this
planet, but probably a moon of a planet, or another planet, etc.

here's a photo of one of the drills NASA has:

www.guardian.co.uk...


here's another photo showing a little bigger/better resolution of a NASA drill

quiztraordinary.blogspot.com...

So, I'm pretty sure this news isn't new, just recently disclosed, yeah we already knew about Europa I guess.

Not to stray off topic, but anyone know the REAL reason we nuked the moon, after two coinciding accidents resulting in the Chinese, and Indian satellites orbiting the moon's orbit, decayed and crashed into the moon?

I REALLY don't think we were on a quest to "find water" on the moon. That reason is too retarded for even I to swallow, especially after this chain of events happened after the moon landing videos went "missing" from NASA

I mean, what's worth more to a civilization, all of the world's gold, or evidence of the earth's inhabitants going to the moon.

And no, I don't believe we went to the moon, call me a cook, I've just done too much research and analysis to believe the event happened, and it's a really good reason to fake the landing, and don't think it's a big deal. It's not like they collapsed the twin towers in '69 and blamed it on a mysterious wizard who used magic to defy physics and cause it from a comfy cave condo.

The Spice must flow...

Alien Life inside our solar system

It's time to accept this reality.

S&F for this news.

When the Cassini probe photographed water ice volcanoes on Enceladus, they started to seriously consider a subsurface ocean there.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/40915c96c0a4.jpg[/atsimg]

That makes two confirmed extra-terrestrial water oceans, Enceladus and Europa. Ganymede and Callisto may also have them.

NASA is currently testing an autonomous robot called DEPTHX at Zacatón in Mexico (deepest flooded sink hole in the world). It uses sonar and creates 3D maps stored in memory for navigation. A refined version of this robot might be sent to Europa. I hope they do it sooner rather than later, I would love to see what it finds. Maybe if we don't start a new war for a couple of months we could afford this space mission.

More info on DEPTHX: www.centauri-dreams.org...