A NASA spacecraft has detected water on Saturn's moon Enceladus, raising the possibility that it could harbor life.
"Any life that existed could not be luxuriant and would have to deal with low temperatures, feeble metabolic energy and perhaps a severe chemical environment,'' said Jeffrey Kargel of the hydrology and water resources department at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "Nevertheless we cannot discount the possibility that Enceladus might be life's distant outpost.''
That makes three places in the solar system that are thought to have -- or have had -- liquid water: Mars, Enceladus and Jupiter's moon Europa.
I hope I live to see the day that we explore both Europa and Enceladus, and find out if life exists outside of Earth. But that requires adequate funding for NASA's space exploration program. Space probes are relatively cheap; it would be a real shame if budget concerns or the effort to mount a manned mission to Mars caused projects like this to fall by the wayside.
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Cassini, Mars, Saturn, space, NASA, extraterrestrial, Europa, Enceladus, politics, midtopia
2 comments:
This is exciting news, as it raises the possibility of life on other planets as well.
Yep. I can hardly wait for the probes to be built and launched. If nothing else, I want to see the pictures sent back as the probe plunges into an alien ocean.
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