[PatrickHenry]

There were at least three threads yesterday about some organic material found in a comet, which realy isn't a new discovery. But this article about Enceladus seems much more spectacular. Life may be everywhere.

[Bolding and underlining added by me.]

[PatrickHenry]

EvolutionPing

A pro-evolution science list with over 300 names. See the list's explanation at my freeper homepage. Then FReepmail to be added or dropped.

[cripplecreek]

I'm also interested in a closer look at Europa.

[AntiGuv]

Nice article, but Venus and Titan need to be added to the search-for-life list.

[ASA Vet]

Thank you sir, for the interesting science thread.
Getting to the thread before the hijackers appear to despoil it was a first for me.

[js1138]

http://www.nineplanets.org/enceladus.html

[Gefreiter]

P,
But what happens when we DO find it?

Assume we find bulletproof evidence of a life form. Some sort of mold or something.

What do we do first? Kill it to study it? Pollute its environment with our probes and rovers? Muck around with its DNA?

Is there a method, or toolset, that allows us to learn about alien life without being invaders from outer space?

[CSXT]

Went there on my honeymoon in 1972. Just got back.

[DesertSapper]

Woohoo! Proof of life elsewhere! There is no god except Darwin!

Whoops, I spoke too soon . . . 4.5 billion years of "heating a cocktail of simple organics, water and nitrogen..." just isn't enough time to create life. Unless of course it happens here on Earth and then it is more than enough time to produce humans.

Wow! Evolution takes a lot of faith.

[Young Werther]

The Viking Probes searched for life on Mars by releasing an organic brew into the Martian soil and looking for metabloic reaction.

For Enceladus NASA's protocol is similar but simpler. They're gonna add some croutons and ranch dressing to enceladus and weight for a low carb reaction!

[RazzPutin]

More speculation here: http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/00current.htm

[VadeRetro]

Its south pole is a hotspot, hovering at a relatively balmy minus -183 degrees Celsius compared to the expected temperature of -203 degrees Celsius.

Balmy! I'll pack the shorts and t-shirts when I go.

[RightWhale]

That was the Deep Impact comet. Carbon signature from the interior.

Why does discussion of lifeforms on other planets bring out the C/E debaters? Seems like there either is life out there or there isn't. One thing seems likely: there will be life out there and it will be us.

[vannrox]

GO HERE to see the incredible images!

[RadioAstronomer]

I personally believe (and yes this is a belief) that life is replete throughout the universe.

[absolootezer0]

there's gas there? drill! drill!

[Antoninus]

Life may be everywhere.

Or it may only be here. Seeing is believing, after all.

[notdownwidems]

but what about Uranus?

[vannrox]

THE NEBULAR THEORY OF PLANETARY ORIGINS

From start to finish, Morrison refused to acknowledge the distinction between fact and theory. Here are his precise words with respect to the origins of planets: "The planets in the solar system formed out of a spinning dust cloud, a circumstellar disk it's called, right along with the Sun, and so they all have the same basic motion coming from their origin, and they formed together with the Sun."

You can see he is confident in a theory that has been around for years, though the theory did not predict any of the milestone discoveries of the space age. The nebular theory is, in fact, one of the primary reasons why every major planetary discovery has come as a surprise. We can now view the planets up close and personal. Their surfaces do not speak for isolated and incremental evolution, but for an unstable solar system in the past.

The appeal of the nebular theory early in the twentieth century was based on observations later revealed to be incorrect. At that time, astronomers believed that only one galaxy, the Milky Way, existed. When they observed what they called "spiral nebulas" and "planetary nebulas," they imagined these clouds to be the birthplaces of stars and planets, formed by the "gravitational collapse" of gas and dust.

But the early "observations" proved to be erroneous. With better telescopes, astronomers realized that "spiral nebulas" were actually galaxies beyond the Milky Way. They could tell us nothing about an imagined "gravitational collapse" of clouds into stars and planets. Then, with still better observational tools in the latter decades of the twentieth century, it became clear that "planetary nebula" were not gas clouds coalescing or accreting into planets, but the remains of EXPLODING STARS.

Thanks to our better telescopes now, we DO see evidence of planetary formation. For example, the discovery of gas-giant planets orbiting nearby stars should have forced a complete review of the assumptions behind the nebular theory. But it did not. Most such bodies are moving on exceedingly close orbits to their primary (star), the opposite of what was predicted by "planetary nebula" models. Faced with this contradiction, the theorists concluded that the gas-giant planets must have moved inward after they were formed. But if that were a normal occurrence, then Jupiter should be closer to the Sun than Mercury, and Earth and its neighbors should not exist. Either way, the picture certainly does not suggest planets coalescing from a cloud, and then remaining in place for billions of years!

[DaGman]

No, not Europa. "All these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landings there."

I know, someone else already posted it!

[ZULU]

"Enceladus"

I thought I ordered that in a restaurant once.