OT: Pick one solar system destination to look for life
Today, NASA confirmed that Jupiter's moon Ganymede (Jupiter's largest) has a 60-mile thick saltwater ocean under its surface. Everyone on Earth where you find liquid water, you find life. So add Ganymede to the list of possible places to look for life.
Thought occurs to me, I throw it out there to the space geeks among us. (STAND UP AND BE PROUD.) I'm appointing each of you Czar of NASA, and challening you to fund one and only one mission to a non-Earth destination, with enough equipment to find whatever life is there (whatever kind of life it is). Which one do you think has the highest probability of life, if it's anywhere off of Earth, which destination would you choose? But also consider, how difficult would the trip be to get there, and how hard would it be to get to wherever you'd expect to find the living organisms.
Your most likely candidates in mostly alphabetical order, but you can add any others:
Enceladus -- medium/small moon of Saturn, also has ice surface with undersurface water ocean, and very recently alleged to have underwater heat vents (which is particularly yummy for life, because they provide energy/food -- e.g. vents at bottom of Earth oceans harbor extremophiles).
Europa -- 4th largest moon of Jupiter; ice surface with huge flowing water ocean underneath; sometimes has holes/cracks in the ice that let its undersurface ocean spew into space; NASA is already talking about a mission to Europa. One thought isn't to actually land on Europa nor burrow through the ice (although NASA is thinking of doing that), but to send a ship thru the geysers that form when water spews out of the cracks -- and see what is in that water.
Ganymede -- 2d largest moon of Jupiter, has 60-mile thick salt water ocean under surface -- but, that surface is about 95 miles of rock and ice, so what would be the source of food/energy for life down there; and is the water too briny, and how would you get through the surface?
Mars -- the only planet on this list, has frozen ice for sure, and there are photographs that hint of water that sometimes flows down hillsides, suggesting there could be buried liquid water not terribly far below surface. "Easiest" trip (relatively speaking) on this list, for sure -- we've already had plenty of robots there.
Titan -- largest moon in the solar system, orbits Saturn; has clouds, rain, oceans, rivers, and lakes...but made of methane, not water; temperature is 100 degrees below zero...in Celcius; yet, on Earth some anerobic bacteria thrive on methane or other hydrocarbons, like in tar pits, so it's not out of the question life could live on Titan.
Columbus, OH -- hey now, I didn't ask about finding intelligent life, so it's not a valid option for this particular question. I think we can all agree that the green/brown gunk you scrape off the underside of the seats in the Big Horseshoe is some form of life.
Still existing life, or existance of life at one time?
Once existing life: I'll start with the latter and say Mars. The polar ice caps provide a currently underexplored area (it's very difficult to land there) with water ice. There is plenty of evidence of water flowing at one time, and of there being an atmosphere. That means evidence of organic life would be simpler to find rather than going beneath thick layers of ice, and it has adequate warmth (Mars, with an atmosphere, would be well within the goldy-locks temperature if I'm not mistaken). There is good probability that life once existed on Mars. But if you are talking about life that's still living, I'd go elsewhere.
Currently existing life: Europa has water ice and water, it's close enough for Jupiter to act as an additional heat source to whatever internal heat that leads to water spewing out into space. It's a decent size moon (about the size of Earth's moon; 6th largest moon in the solar system), and is less difficult to get to than many of the other listed options. There is other evidence supporting the potential to have organic material, such as specific clay-like materials. It's even hypothosized that it has geological activity like plate-tectonics on Earth, so I'd like that option.
Potential to Learn the Most: Titan. Surface liquid (only other solar system body besides Earth to have liquid readily on the surface still), atmosphere, largest moon of Satern (2nd largest in the solar system). I'm convinced that many very smart people have unnecessarily limited their scope of the necessities for life by making an assumption that water is needed because that's how it is on earth. Particularly Ammonia and Methane could be examples of something that could act as the solvent for life. Our research on earth in extremely hot areas of the ocean have already stretched our view of what is capable for harboring life, I find the composition of Titan to be little deterent for the possibility of it having life compared other, water-extensive areas of the solar system. We could learn a lot from Titan, and may expand what we're looking for when we're looking for "Life". While the other areas are safer, because we know life can exist in water, we may not learn as much by looking there.
I just found this out...
Here's a cool video I just saw too.
This makes you realize how off all of those models and drawings of the solar system are.
And I really like it. I think it really captures just how amazing it is that we were able to land humans on an object so far away. I think because it comparatively looks so big and close in the night sky, that it has the perception that it is in fact, close. It's relatively close, by space standards, but space standards are crazy, and the moon is really, really far away.
Just an amazing, inspiring accomplishment just thinking about it.
I always found the following to be even more awe-inspiring:
Every single atom in your body was made in one of two places: (1) Probably most or all of the hydrogen in your body (in all those water molecules and carbohydrates and protein etc. etc.) was made by the Big Bang, at or shortly after the creation of the universe 13.77 billion years ago. (2) Probably every other atom in your body -- every carbon atom, every oxygen atom, every iron atem, etc. -- was made inside a star which exploded 5+ billion years ago (or, possible, by multiple stars that exploded), then reassembled to form a protoplanetary disk from which our Sun (2d-generation star) and all the planets formed. Don't get me wrong, the molecules in your body (the water, proteins, etc.) all formed on Earth. But the atoms making up those molecules were made by the Big Bang or by one or more stars that turned hydrogen into heavier elements, and then went nova/supernova to scatter those elements into space.
You literally are made of star dust and the residue from the creation of the Universe.(*)
Now, go have a drink and contemplate that.
(*) Jury still out as to what Tom Creen is made of, but I digress.
Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to our sun, is about 4.24 ly away.
there would be gravity there and zero gravity as well.
Out of the solar system, my next choice would be LV-426.
March 12th, 2015 at 11:11 PM ^
Europa. Not that it's on the menu, but imagine terraforming and having that view of Jupiter every day. Only problem is the high radiation.
It can't happen because Venus has the hottest planet surface in the solar system, but it would be so cool to somehow find out if it previously hosted life. The idea, from my understanding, is that Venus's insanely hot atmosphere could be the product of a greenhouse effect gone out of control.
Cool fact: the temperature and pressure of the upper atmosphere of Venus (about 50 km above the surface) is rather similar to ours. The only problem is the sulfuric acid in the air, which is also mostly made up of CO2. Some scientists have proposed the idea of having floating cities, which would do so since the oxygen people would have on board to breathe is less dense than CO2.
March 12th, 2015 at 11:47 PM ^
March 13th, 2015 at 12:06 AM ^
Mars is too far to haul material and equipment to build a colony. Robots could be used to build the underground modules on the moon as well as the nuclear fusion power plants.This will probably not happen in any of our life times.