"Small Saturn moon has most conditions needed to sustain life, Nasa says"

[suffragette]

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/apr/13/alien-life-saturn-moon-enceladus-nasa

A tiny moon of Saturn has most of the conditions necessary for life, Nasa announced on Thursday, unveiling a discovery from an underground ocean that makes the world a leading candidate for organisms as humans know them.

Scientists stressed that the discovery on a moon named Enceladus is not evidence that life has in fact developed on another world, but they have managed to establish the existence of the water, chemistry and energy sources that are necessary for it.

“We now know that Enceladus has almost all of the ingredients that you need to support life as we know it on Earth,” said Linda Spilker, a project scientist who said the finding essentially confirmed vents on the moon’s seafloor.

Chris Glein, another scientist involved in the project, said the discovery showed that the moon’s ocean contained a potential chemical feast for microbes. “We have made the first calorie count on an alien ocean,” he said.

[heaven05]

1. HELL!!!!!

Let's go.....I'm outta here.

[suffragette]

7. ...

[MineralMan]

2. If there are microbes, odds are that there are tiny critters that eat those

microbes, and bigger critters that eat those tiny critters, too, and so on and so on. Life will find a way.

[suffragette]

5. Yup. Article notes the similarity to teeming with life ocean vents on Earth.

[eShirl]

3. Did someone say "enchiladas?"

there's your calorie count

[suffragette]

4. Ok, now I'm craving a sopito (or two)!

[LittleBlue]

6. We need samples. Very difficult to sustain life without a magnetosphere

Although water is an excellent shield against radiation, and it's miles deep in some regions. Anyone know if it benefits from Saturn's?

Also the sun is tiny at that distance, providing very little energy for sustaining life. Shame it isn't closer.

[suffragette]

8. Good points.

From WAPO:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2017/04/13/nasa-finds-ingredients-for-life-spewing-out-of-saturns-moon/?utm_term=.448cc92a5bdb

Yet the space probe has already dramatically exceeded scientists' expectations. When Cassini launched toward Saturn in 1997, NASA didn't even know that Enceladus had geysers, let alone an ocean that could harbor life, and the spacecraft wasn't equipped with instruments that could test for biomarkers (the instrument used in this study was initially designed to study a different moon entirely). If scientists want to search for life on Enceladus in earnest, they will need to send another probe to the moon.

Glein is working on a proposal for exactly such a mission. But right now, NASA has no project in the works to revisit the Saturnian system. It could be more than a decade before we go back.

“It's frustrating and thrilling at the same time,” Glein said.

[joshcryer]

9. Water is an excellent radiation shield.

https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/

Those critters, if there are thermal vents in the depths, would probably get less radiation than most life forms. In fact, it might be part of the anti-contamination protocol when we explore there, to not expose them to radiation by our drilling or other methods, as it could kill them.

[lunatica]

10. Maybe some day we will tow it closer

And park it in the Goldilocks zone on the opposite side of the Sun.

[NickB79]

11. The sun isn't necessary at all in these kinds of ecosystems

The energy to fuel life is entirely chemosynthetic, derived from chemical-eating bacteria around hydrothermal vents kept active by the heat of the planet's core, just like the deep vents here on Earth. No photosynthesis needed.

[LittleBlue]

12. I should have been more clear

For future colonization. It would be nice to find one planet within a safe zone of a magnetosphere of a gas giant. But at that distance from the sun... meh. It would be depressing to have the sun with such a low luminosity and so small. The gravity is too low unfortunately, so a space station with artificial gravity would be required.

[Stuart G]

13. What this means..??It think it means it is very very cold there

Isn't Saturn passed Jupiter, and way passed Mars????????

just asking....

[LittleBlue]

14. Yeah it's way past Jupiter

Jupiter is between 5-5.5 AUs from the Sun. Saturn is at 9.5-10.5.

I'm struggling to remember my astronomy, but isn't the size of the sun the inverse of the square of the distance? So the sun would look 1/25 as large on Jupiter, and 1/100 on Saturn. (correct me if I did that wrong).

[jmowreader]

15. I'm sold. Let's start sending Republicans this weekend.

Start with everyone in the Trump administration.