What Makes Enceladus so Attractive in the Search for Life in Space?
Enceladus is considered to be one of the most promising places to search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system. Researchers suspect that under the moon’s icy crust there is a global ocean of liquid water and a rocky core further below. Due to cryovolcanic activity, gigantic plumes break through cracks in the crust at the moon’s south pole, ejecting ice particles hundreds of kilometers into space.
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft passed through these plumes multiple times to analyze its composition. Enceladus’s ocean is the only extraterrestrial “body of water” from which scientists have been able to directly analyze samples. The samples revealed traces of various salts and organic compounds. Furthermore, previous analyses conducted by Cassini gave indications of hydrothermal processes on the seafloor and other conditions that are significant in supporting life.
So it seems the people whose job it is to study these things do have reason to think it might exist.
Why not? Friction from tidal forces keeps the moon got enough to contain liquid water under its ice cover. This makes it similar to Europa in some ways.
Oh, but there is. One reason is that life on Earth seems to have appeared almost immediately after the crust cooled enough and the primordial ocean formed.
OK... Serious question here: we find "life" (algae?) on one of Saturn's moons or one of Jupiter's moons. So, we spend ~$50 Billion (arguably much more) and find "life". So? Why is this important to people? There isn't one chance in (place your own word here) that we can do anything about it or even send humans there. Seriously want to know what people really think...
Because it could then tell us if it's related to us or not, potentially we could get to see how life unrelated to us looks like, how life in general is originally formed, how likely in the universe it is...
I honestly struggle to imagine how it can be considered unimportant, unless your stating position is that said life is completely unreachable to current and future tech, which I don't find likely.
The $10 trillion will be spent regardless. Whether it's on luxury yachts, private islands, and political capital or health care, education, and exploring the solar system are choices.
Because of statistics. If we can find life, potentially started independently or pollinated in a couple of planets close to each-other, then life is everywhere and we may be in a dark forest of intelligent or hidden native predatory beings waiting to wipe us out if we squeak or show up elsewhere. If it's not as frequent, then we can keep exploring to look for it and more human-habitable spots.
But there's no reason to think that it does.
So it seems the people whose job it is to study these things do have reason to think it might exist.
Why not? Friction from tidal forces keeps the moon got enough to contain liquid water under its ice cover. This makes it similar to Europa in some ways.
Oh, but there is. One reason is that life on Earth seems to have appeared almost immediately after the crust cooled enough and the primordial ocean formed.
OK... Serious question here: we find "life" (algae?) on one of Saturn's moons or one of Jupiter's moons. So, we spend ~$50 Billion (arguably much more) and find "life". So? Why is this important to people? There isn't one chance in (place your own word here) that we can do anything about it or even send humans there. Seriously want to know what people really think...
Because it could then tell us if it's related to us or not, potentially we could get to see how life unrelated to us looks like, how life in general is originally formed, how likely in the universe it is...
I honestly struggle to imagine how it can be considered unimportant, unless your stating position is that said life is completely unreachable to current and future tech, which I don't find likely.
Maybe only possibly unimportant based upon the staggering costs involved. Is it really really worth that?? Is finding life worth $10 Trillion dollars?
The $10 trillion will be spent regardless. Whether it's on luxury yachts, private islands, and political capital or health care, education, and exploring the solar system are choices.
Because of statistics. If we can find life, potentially started independently or pollinated in a couple of planets close to each-other, then life is everywhere and we may be in a dark forest of intelligent or hidden native predatory beings waiting to wipe us out if we squeak or show up elsewhere. If it's not as frequent, then we can keep exploring to look for it and more human-habitable spots.