Enceladus: Ice-Jet Plumes

enceladus12_cassini.jpg

On last weekend’s close flyby of Saturn’s moon, the Cassini robot photographed these giant plumes of ice venting on the sunlit edge. They suggest the existence of underground oceans on the ice world. Cassini also has a video of the auroras on Saturn’s poles, similar to those of earth.

0 responses to “Enceladus: Ice-Jet Plumes

  1. That’s about cool.
    I saw that pic the other day and the first thing thought was that was the possibility for life.
    If there’s water, it’s warm enough for life as we know it.

  2. Probably just bacteria, though, or some sort of worm at a hot vent on the bottom. Still…

  3. I didn’t mean intelligent life, but if there’s life in that inhospitable place, it could mean that there’s life everywhere.
    Or… it could just mean panspermia is right and it started in our solar system.

  4. Who knows, the worms might be intelligent. They might be building cities, discussing the possibility of intelligent worms elsewhere.
    Panspermia, I think, means life seeds coming here from everywhere, meaning they started elsewhere and came here.

  5. My point was that until we get to other solar systems, we’ll never know how extensive life is.
    Yeah, my understanding is that it says that life is so unlikely that it only started once and spread.
    But it had to start somewhere, why not here?
    I’m not exactly sure how that’s any different from creationism though. I’m sure it’s all statistical and stuff.