Liquid Water on Saturn Moon Could Support Life

Beowulf

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"Scientists have found evidence that cold, Yellowstone-type geysers of water are issuing from a moon of Saturn called Enclyladus, apparently fueled by reservoirs that may lie just tens of yards just benath the moon's icy surface.
The surprising discovery, detailed in Friday's issue of the journal Science, could shoot Enceladus to the top of the list for the search for life elsewhere in our Solar System. Scientists described it as the most important discovery in planetary science in a quarter-century..."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11736311/


Cool, huh?
 
I doubt that people or equipment cannot able to survive in Saturn during the strong wind.
 
EDGE said:
I doubt that people or equipment cannot able to survive in Saturn during the strong wind.

I think we're actually more interested in little microbes than actual humans surviving there.
 
Endymion said:
I think we're actually more interested in little microbes than actual humans surviving there.


Exactly....It'll be with great interest as this will be explored with hopes of revealing awesome discoveries whether it'll benefit 'us' or not-- ;)
 
Dang.
So that's where those Sea Monkeys came from.
 
While this could be a very important discovery, I think it will have troubling implications for... religion. If microbic (sp?) life is detected in Enclyladus' geysers, a mere moon orbiting a gigantic planet in our solar system, what does that mean for the rest of the universe?

God created Man in his own image (Genesis 1:27); What happens where there is a geniune alien visiting us, say, 1,000+ years in the future? Or that there is intelligent contact between us and some remote solar system and noted that there are a lot of differences? If that happens, it will be the day that our religion(s) died.

Personally, I think Earth occupies an unique position in the whole universe and I don't think there's any little green men living anywhere else! Having a healthy ego about our place in our universe certainly can't hurt, either! :)
 
Eyeth, why can there NOT be other worlds, and other sentient beings in other physical forms? Why can it not be that it is man's SPIRIT that is created in the image of God? And why could that not be true of other sentient beings?

I don't see a conflict--I think there'd be some social upheaval but I think that many religious people would come to peace with it. The ultraconservatives would probably deny science in spite of clear evidence, as usual, but the majority would probably come to an understanding like what I stated above.
 
Rose Immortal said:
Why can it not be that it is man's SPIRIT that is created in the image of God? And why could that not be true of other sentient beings?
Damn! That's a pretty astute observation you've got there.
 
They're real ya know.
They wear tiny foil hats.
We are doomed.
 
Endymion said:
I think we're actually more interested in little microbes than actual humans surviving there.

I said or >:\

since you said they're interested in little microbes. While mean, the equipment cannot handle this planet during over thousand mph of wind in there.
 
So now the objects in this solar system that are being investigated for signs of past or present life are Mars, Europa, Titan, Enceladus and the atmosphere of Venus. Here, it says that solar radiation and lightning should make lots of carbon monoxide but not much was found. Carbonyl sulfide and hydrogen sulfide were found. Those gases don't coexist unless something is making them and carbonyl sulfide is hard to make by inorganic means.

There may be non-biological ways to produce the hydrogen sulphide or carbonyl sulphide that we do not know about, but both reactions need catalysts to proceed efficiently," says Schulze-Makuch. "On Earth, the most efficient catalysts are microbes."

ESO's Venus Express is on its way to Venus and could find out if it's life or unknown processes making those gases.

If it's microbes making those gases, they could be using solar ultraviolet rays with sulfur dioxide and carbon dioxide to make those gases. Maybe this could explain the dark patches in ultraviolet images of Venus's clouds.

Maybe life started when Venus still had water and survives in the atmosphere.
 
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