
Saturn moon 'able to support life' - interconnector
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39592059
======
_rpd
Here's the paper mentioned in the article ...

Cassini finds molecular hydrogen in the Enceladus plume: Evidence for
hydrothermal processes

> Saturn's moon Enceladus has a subsurface ocean covered by a layer of ice.
> Some liquid escapes into space through cracks in the ice, which is the
> source of one of Saturn's rings. In October 2015, the Cassini spacecraft
> flew directly through the plume of escaping material and sampled its
> chemical composition. Waite et al. found that the plume contains molecular
> hydrogen, H2, a sign that the water in Enceladus' ocean is reacting with
> rocks through hydrothermal processes (see the Perspective by Seewald). This
> drives the ocean out of chemical equilibrium, in a similar way to water
> around Earth's hydrothermal vents, potentially providing a source of
> chemical energy.

[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6334/155](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6334/155)

~~~
shrimp_emoji
A way to remember it is that Enceladus is the snowball with the blue "tiger
stripes" on the south pole (grooved vents through which shoot streams of ice
crystals [driven by tidal heating along its orbit around Saturn]).

~~~
grasshopperpurp
Beautiful image.

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nzonbi
If life is there, completely disconnected from earth life, it would be
dramatic. That would mean that our solar system, has life on at least two, out
of nine planets. That would seem to indicate that life is a fairly common
things on planets. It would allow to adjust the drake equation, to easily
predict millions of planets with life. And that would mean a high probability
of many advanced, intelligent civilizations on the universe.

~~~
charles-salvia
Based on the developments in exo-planet research along with discoveries like
this over the past couple of years, I would conjecture that life is
_ridiculously_ common. But by life, I mean microbial life. I would imagine
that multi-cellular life is much rarer, and life capable of reaching human-
level intelligence and beyond is probably absurdly rare, on the level of
something like one species per galaxy. It's all worthless conjecture, of
course, but the point is I wouldn't be surprised if microbial life is very,
very common.

~~~
nostrademons
I'm kinda curious if there's any evidence that would support or rule out
intelligent life having existed on earth before.

I mean, if humanity goes extinct and it's another 65 million years before
another intelligent species evolves, what evidence would they have of our
existence? All our buildings would've long since crumbled into dust or been
crushed by plate tectonics. Metal will corrode and rust away after a few
thousand years. Our largest stone monuments will be gone after 10,000 or so.
You'll find occasional fossilized skeletons, but all that would tell future
species is that a bipedal mammal with a large brain once existed. Even
plastics, the bane of environmentalists, degrade over a couple thousand years.

Probably the only thing we'd see would be a huge mass extinction and an
unusually rapid change in the earth's climate. Which we've seen several times
in the geologic record already.

~~~
Cyph0n
How do we know that 65 million years is long enough for a species with a
human-like intelligence to evolve? What if our evolution was merely a
biological fluke that took much less time than usual?

~~~
Baeocystin
I think this is a particularly salient point.

Earth is already well on the backside of how much longer it will be hospitable
to life. First life was ~4 billion years ago. First multicellular life, 1.5.
And now here we are, the first intelligence of our kind, clearly closely
related to the animals we descended from, but just as clearly different in how
our minds work.

That's one example in 4 billion years, and the Earth has between 500 million
to 1 billion years left before the ever-increasing brightness of the sun boils
the oceans and sterilizes the planet.

It could easily be that life is stunningly common across the universe, but
that 80% is at the level of bacteria, and 99.x% is simple animals at best.

~~~
swombat
My understanding from Astrophysics class back at uni was that sun-like stars
spent 5-10b years on the main sequence, so I thought we may well have another
5b years of quality sunshine to enjoy. Or not.

~~~
Baeocystin
You're right, in terms of the sun's ultimate lifespan. Unfortunately for us,
the Goldilocks Zone is very sensitive. To achieve full solar sterilization of
the Earth only requires ~10% greater output from the sun, for example. And
that will happen long before the sun leaves the main sequence.

To give you an idea of the timescales involved, at the very birth of the solar
system, right after the Earth coalesced, solar output was approximately 70% of
what it is today.

It's not quite as bad as it sounds- if there is technological, intelligent
life on Earth a billion years from now, simple diffraction gratings at the
Sun::Earth L1 point could stretch the remaining time for hundreds of millions
of years. Not something we can currently achieve, but it is within the realm
of possibility. Beyond that is pure speculation.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_sunshade)

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smdz
I always had this question - Can life exist outside our perception of
biological life?

Intelligent life might be an anomaly, and rare in the universe - but is it
possible that life exists outside our perception of biology? Afterall
everything is just rules and actions that lead to predictable reactions
(unless quantum physics says something else)

I look at artificial life - that exists in virtual environments. It looks like
life - but we know it isn't for real. It cannot replicate/grow outside its
environment. But that argument could be used to for all non-human life on
Earth, if humans never existed.

Even stuff like mars rover could be engineered to mine, manufacture and
duplicate - eventually creating a colony of rovers that populate the planet
and consume the planet's resources. Well, that might look like semi-
intelligent life - but we know it isn't - or is it life?

~~~
tcfunk
Somewhat related - I posed this question to my 4th grade science teacher. She
was quick to shoot me down, and I'll never forget it.

~~~
knightofmars
I'm not saying the following is what happened in your situation. As an
anecdotal insight, I have friends who are K thru 8 school teachers teachers
and they have to be extremely careful with this type of question. The reason
is religion, specifically Christian religion. If they misstep and posit a view
that contradicts a child's parent's religious views then they are, best case
scenario, going to hear about it or, worst case scenario, going to have
parents form a group whose sole purpose is ousting the teacher from the
school.

From my soap box, the religious self-policing, to me, is one of the more
disconcerting aspects of the education system in the United States. As a
personal observation, if a parent is worried that a single teacher providing
an intentionally unbiased perspective on a philosophical topic is going to
challenge a child's beliefs to the point where it overcomes a family's and
church's indoctrination then it isn't the new perspective that's the problem.
To this day I believe that "core curriculum" should include logic and
philosophy with an emphasis greater than all other topics.

~~~
nkrisc
Critical thinking is the greatest threat to religious indoctrination as it
relies on the acceptance of teachings as fact from authorities at face-value
without question. If a child learns to be skeptical and questioning, they'll
never learn to believe something that can't be supported given the currently
available evidence, or may very well be contradicted by it.

~~~
smdz
Critical thinking is good - but kids can ask questions that are very difficult
to answer (but we think of those as common knowledge)

For example: This question

> Why is 1+0 = 1 and not 10

Attempt to find an answer will generate more questions and it is a journey
down the rabbit hole. Sometimes you don't want to do that.

And upto high-school I learnt things that were based on assumptions that I
kept questioning. Internet brought be some peace in my college years.
Unfortunately, nowadays internet is also filled with fake/wrong/hoax/biased
stuff.

~~~
pmalynin
Because zero is an additive identity. Might as well teach your kid number
theory.

~~~
platz
> rabbit hole

~~~
pmalynin
But why not go down a rabbit hole with a child, I feel it could be a wonderful
experience that will challenge your beliefs and that of the kid. I don't
really get the fascination with ignoring these type of questions: "Dad why is
the sky blue" \- "Eat your ice cream Timmy".

~~~
platz
because child has to get homework done to go to bed or because sibling spilled
some milk and there is no time to teach number theory to toddler who is trying
to understand 1 + 0

~~~
nkrisc
"That's an excellent question. Ask me again tomorrow."

~~~
platz
right - the operative phrase in the OP's post is Sometimes. "Sometimes you
don't want to do that." He did not make a categorical statement, but y'all are
treating like he did.

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gonvaled
“able to support life“ ... as we know it.

The universe being so vast and so diverse, most life forms will probably
escape our comprehension: completely different chemistry, environments
(pressures, temperatures), time scales, state of matter (plasma based life
forms?), or even energy based ones.

We are not even looking for such different life forms, since we have already
concluded that:

\- life must be water based

\- life must be carbon based

\- life must be based on dna (or simillar)

Which leads (given our limited knowledge of the chemistry of these substances)
to the conclussion that life must be extremely similar to Earth's.

I see a lack of imagination here.

~~~
matthewmacleod
I'm not sure that's fair.

Researchers would be absolutely captivated to discover life forms that were
drastically different from anything we've encountered. At the moment though,
there's no clear understanding of how such life might form or what it could
look like – and there are reasons to think that new life forms might be quite
similar to known life forms. After all, we know at a high level what makes
matter-based-carbon-water-life-forms work!

It's a bit silly to try looking for something when we don't know what it looks
like. Instead we can say with reasonable certainty that "life can evolve in
this way, and we have evidence" – and look for life like that.

~~~
gonvaled
My point is that there are vastly more environments different than Earth, than
similar ones.

And that while having proof that water based life forms are possible, we do
not yet know how common they are. Maybe water is, considered in astronomical
terms, an hostile substrate for life.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
It's really all just guessing, with only one data point. It may be that you're
right, and alien life is all incomprehensibly weird in different ways. Or it
may be turn out that only semi-Earth-like conditions can produce life, and it
all looks rather familiar. Or it may be somewhere in between. I hope I live
long enough to find out.

------
PaulHoule
Not a huge surprise. Most likely our kind of environment is an unusual place
for life, it might be much more normal for life outside the frost line to run
on geothermal energy (where there are 10 or so bodies with liquid water) as
opposed to the one small rock that didn't get all the water boiled away by the
sun.

------
aphextron
The fact that Cassini is still out there doing groundbreaking science is just
mind blowing to me. That thing launched when I was in middle school.

~~~
cyberferret
I feel the same way about the Voyagers... Launched when I was in early primary
school. Incredible to think that it will still be out there long after I am
not around.

I've always been fascinated by that project, and follow all news on it that I
can, and was blown away recently to actually have a Twitter conversation with
someone who did one of the voices on the 'Golden Record'.

~~~
nappy-doo
Haynes (the publisher who does car DIY books) did a book on the Voyager
probes, and it's a fun non-intro book. It gives a broad overview of the
engineering in the probes, some problems with their construction, etc. Overall
I enjoyed the read.

------
rbanffy
This makes Tethys and Rhea very tempting places for permanent occupation -
they have abundant ice on the surface (easy to dig if you have a power source)
and the delta-v's between them and the surface of Enceladus are between 1000
m/s and 3000 m/s, something chemical rockets can do easily.

------
pasbesoin
Just in the last day or so, reporting on some experiment supposedly
demonstrating that asteroid impacts on Earth are/were capable of creating the
amino acid precursors to RNA.

Yeah, really, this demonstrates nothing, on its own. But, interesting to think
about.

------
dave_ant
Is there tectonics on that moon ? Isn't it too small for that ? The same goes
for Europa... Is there real tectonics there ?

If there is no tectonics in place and you have a "closed" big bucket of water
constantly filled up with chemicals from hydrothermal vents during billions of
years, wouldn't the water become completely soaked and kind of slimy ? Not the
best place for life, even for extremophiles...

I also found an interesting article on the probable high acidity of Europa
ocean, that would make it not suitable for harboring life :
[http://www.space.com/14757-europa-moon-ocean-
acidic.html](http://www.space.com/14757-europa-moon-ocean-acidic.html)

I guess it could also apply to Enceladus ocean. Can someone elaborate on that
?

P.S.: English is not my native language, sorry for any grammatical incoherence
:)

~~~
Symmetry
The lack of techtonics on the Moon is a consequence of the Moon having cooled
down throughout so it doesn't have a molten core anymore. With Europa we can
actually observe plate techtonics in the continent sized ice sheets covering
its surface and due to the evidence of activity we can infer that there must
still be enough heat generated inside to keep things moving. Either the decay
of radioisotopes inside or tidal flexing causing heat.

Regarding acidity, life has to have some source of energy to get going and
that's probably going to have to be a source of reactive chemicals.

------
yomly
So here's an orthogonal question. In a field like space navigation, where your
findings come back after an expedition planned 5-10+ years ago how do you be
"agile"?

What is the go to project management style? Can we learn from these
disciplines for alternative practices to building software?

~~~
andrepd
Orthogonal? x) Why not "unrelated"?

~~~
kerbalspacepro
It is related? The article is about space research, his question is about the
management and organization of space research.

------
julienchastang
For those interested in this topic, I recommend "Astrobiology: A Very Short
Introduction" by David Catling. Catling details nine celestial bodies in the
solar system that could potentially harbor life, and discusses Enceladus is
some detail.

------
troels
If it turns out that there is no life there, maybe we should try to transplant
some?

------
ende

      ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS - EXCEPT EUROPA.
      ATTEMPT NO LANDINGS THERE.
      USE THEM TOGETHER. USE THEM IN PEACE.

~~~
Sharlin
A good way to distinguish those who have read 2010-the-book from those who
have seen 2010-the-movie...

~~~
gonvaled
Could you ellaborate? That's in the movie, what is in the book?

~~~
Sharlin
The last line was added to the movie, basically as an anti-Cold War statement.
I find it unsubtle and clichéd.

~~~
gonvaled
Thanks!

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AnimalMuppet
Well, Enceladus has an energy source that could perhaps be a source of energy
for some kind of living organism. "Able" kind of says that _all_ you need for
life is some kind of available energy, which... let's just call that
"unproven".

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svisser
Coincidentally a book was written a few decades ago called "Ringmakers of
Saturn" which discusses the presence of alien life around Saturn as well.

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mavhc
The Ion Neutral Mass Spectrometer ion collector has an open-source mode,
confused me for a moment, they mean open ion source of course.

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SticksAndBreaks
Could we have a research station beneath the ice ?

------
known
If it supports life, why there is no life in that moon?

