Oxygen envelops Saturn's icy moon

[micropage7]

A Nasa spacecraft has detected oxygen around one of Saturn's icy moons, Dione.

The discovery supports a theory that suggests all of the moons near Saturn and Jupiter might have oxygen around them.

Researchers say that their finding increases the likelihood of finding the ingredients for life on one of the moons orbiting gas giants.

The study has been published in Geophysical Research Letters.

According to co-author Andrew Coates of University College London, Dione has no liquid water and so does not have the conditions to support life. But it is possible that other moons of Jupiter and Saturn do.

"Some of the other moons have liquid oceans and so it is worth looking more closely at them for signs of life," Prof Coates said.

The discovery was made using the Cassini spacecraft, which flew by Dione nearly two years ago. Instruments on board the unmanned probe detected a thin layer of oxygen around the moon, so thin that scientists prefer to call it an "exosphere" rather than an atmosphere.

But the discovery is important because it suggests there is a process at work around the solar system's gas giants, Saturn and Jupiter, in which oxygen is released from their icy satellites.

It seems that highly charged particles from the planets' powerful radiation belts split the water in the ice into hydrogen and oxygen.

Dione's sister moon, Enceladus is thought to harbour a liquid ocean below its icy surface. The same is thought to be true of Europa, Callisto and Ganymede which orbit Jupiter.

Prof Coates is among a group of scientists lobbying the European Space Agency to send an orbiter to explore Jupiter's icy moons - known as the Juice mission.

"These are fascinating places to look for signs of life," he said.

As is Titan, Saturn's largest satellite. Its nitrogen and methane atmosphere is reminiscent of the early Earth, according to Prof Coates.

"It may be an Earth waiting to happen as the outer Solar System warms up," he said.

Nasa is developing a proposal to send a landing craft, or lander, to float on one of the satellite's oily lakes.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17225127
or
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/cass...ature20120302/

[NinkobEi]

Good, there is a buffer for aliens to stop at and fill up their resources tank before hitting planet earth. I feel slightly safer tonight.

[1Kurgan1]

I have always had this question in my mind. So what if they found water or oxygen elsewhere, who says another form of life would need to that survive? Who says another form of life from another planet would need the same basic things to survive that anything living on Earth would? I'm pretty sure there are a few things on Earth that don't need oxygen to survive and can breath other things (though I could be wrong here).

[radrok]

Originally Posted by 1Kurgan1

I have always had this question in my mind. So what if they found water or oxygen elsewhere, who says another form of life would need to that survive? Who says another form of life from another planet would need the same basic things to survive that anything living on Earth would? I'm pretty sure there are a few things on Earth that don't need oxygen to survive and can breath other things (though I could be wrong here).

You are right Kurgan there are some micro organisms that don't need oxygen and some that are actually are poisoned by it
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_organism

[NinkobEi]

I think oxygen provides higher (energy?) content to an organism than say, carbon dioxide. You wouldn't want to be a lion chasing down a zebra having to rely on the low volume of 'good stuff' in co2.

[qubit]

micropage7 dude, you gotta stop posting this sh*t, I'm just high all the time.

That's a great picture.

[AphexDreamer]

We are rethinking what it takes for life to exist.

The discoveries of hydrothermal vents that exhaust a plume of black or white mineral rich smoke is enough heat and food to sustain life at extreme depths and pressure where sun light cannot reach.

One such very interesting creature is the Giant tube worm. What is fascinating about them is that the bright red part of its body is in fact a really complex structure of hemoglobin. Much like that of human hemoglobin in blood but like 40%(I believe that was the number) better at removing toxins.

And the most extraordinary life to be found is right at the mouth of the vents, where temps reach 400F! There you can find a bacteria which lives off of sulfur compounds! The stuff that is toxic to life it actually feeds on and through a process known as chemosynthasis converts inorganic material to organic material feeding all the wonderful creatures like the Giant Tube worm! Other bacterias can do with this with nitrates and methane.


Life where we once thought was impossible is right under our noises.

[Chevalr1c]

Indeed Aphex, and I think they are playing (or will play) a major role in cleaning up our toxic waste.

[Drone]

Dramatic plumes, both large and small, spray water ice from many locations near the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus. More than 30 individual jets of different sizes can be seen in this image captured during a flyby of NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Nov. 21, 2009.

Forget about Dione now. There is something more exciting on the other moon of Saturn, called Enceladus

"More than 90 jets of all sizes near Enceladus's south pole are spraying water vapor, icy particles, and organic compounds all over the place," says Carolyn Porco, an award-winning planetary scientist and leader of the Imaging Science team for NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. "Cassini has flown several times now through this spray and has tasted it. And we have found that aside from water and organic material, there is salt in the icy particles. The salinity is the same as that of Earth's oceans."

Wow ...

She believes the small moon, with its sub-surface liquid sea, organics, and an energy source, may host the same type of life we find in similar environments on Earth.

It gets even more interesting

"The kind of ecologies Enceladus might harbor could be like those deep within our own planet. Abundant heat and liquid water are found in Earth's subterranean volcanic rocks. Organisms in those rocks thrive on hydrogen (produced by reactions between liquid water and hot rocks) and available carbon dioxide and make methane, which gets recycled back into hydrogen. And it's all done entirely in the absence of sunlight or anything produced by sunlight."

lol

"It's erupting out into space where we can sample it. It sounds crazy but it could be snowing microbes on the surface of this little world. In the end, it's is the most promising place I know of for an astrobiology search. We don't even need to go scratching around on the surface. We can fly through the plume and sample it. Or we can land on the surface, look up and stick our tongues out. And voilà…we have what we came for."

http://www.physorg.com/news/2012-03-...enceladus.html

The source of Enceladus's heat appears to be Saturn itself. Researchers say Saturn's gravitational pull causes the moon's shape to change slightly on a daily basis as it orbits. Flexing motions in its interior generate heat - like the heat you feel in a paperclip when you bend it back and forth rapidly.

[m1dg3t]

Was it not hypothesized that, IIRC, Mars at one point in time actually had an atmosphere? I know it's not Saturn but if it was possible for Mars why not any other planet in out solar system?

The more advanced our tech become's the more we'll see just how likely it is that life exist's outside of our earth. I personally belive that there is intelligent life in the Universe but there is no "hard" evidence to support that claim but as someone once said "Absence of evidence is NOT evidence of absence!"

I mean just look at what Kurgan posted there, Loki's castle i think it's called? We just discovered this recently and has caused (forced) us (mainstream science) to rethink how life operate's. With nature the possibilities are always endless/limitless, i love the possibilities!