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Mar

10

Life on Enceladus?

The big tease that wasn’t ( thanks to Matt Drudge ignoring posting protocol ), is that there is LIFE ON ENCELADUS!

Well, that’s not exactly proven.  There is apparently, very strong evidence of liquid water.

See those plumes shooting off Enceladus?  Those are apparently ice crystals.  What makes this situation unique is that they think there is water below the surface feeding those plumes.  Now, on Earth, where there’s water, there’s ALWAYS life.

But, this isn’t Earth we’re talking about.  It’s a 500km moon of Saturn.  Sure, it’s got water, and it may be heated by some internal mechanism like volcanic activity.  But, it gets very little sunlight and the water is under a solid sheet of ice.  Whatever might be living down there, in the millions of years Enceladus has been around, would still have most likely evolved no more than microbes.

Now, I’m one of those people that’s certain there’s advanced life out there.  So, I’m not going to be shocked when we do find microbes on other planets or moons.  Finding water is cool.  But to me, that’s all it is.  And, contrary to some of the buzz yesterday, it’s certainly no guarantee that life exists on Enceladus.

We do however, need to go there and find out for sure!

For a much better and detailed read on this, visit Bad Astronomy and Ciclops.

Category: SETI, The Solar System | Tagged with , , , ,
About the author Moonage:

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