NASA Reveals First-Ever Photo Of Liquid On Another World

Source: CNN

NASA scientists revealed Friday a first-of-its-kind image from space showing reflecting sunlight from a lake on Saturn's largest moon, Titan.

"This is the first time outside Earth we've seen specular reflection from another liquid from another body," said Ralf Jaumann, a scientist analyzing data from the Cassini unmanned space probe.

The glint appears to be coming from the southern edge of a lake called Kraken Mare -- a massive body of methane that covers about 150,000 square miles (400,000 square kilometers). That's larger than the Caspian Sea, which is the largest lake on Earth.

"Next, we want to find out more about Titan's liquid," said Jaumann. "Do we have some kind of weather there? Do we have changes with seasons? Does it rain? How does the liquid methane run across the surface?"

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/space/12/18/saturn.titan.reflection/index.html

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I find it wonderful and amazing that we have found so much new evidence of extraterrestrial water and liquid in recent times. First we found evidence of water on Mars, then evidence of water on the Moon, and just this week we discovered a water-rich, earth like planet named GJ 1214b, close enough to be seen by an amateur-sized, 16-inch telescope on the ground. Why had we not seen this planet before? According to CNN it is because we assumed it wouldn't exist near a star smaller than our own Sun and that was because we had believed that "Earth-like planets could form only in conditions similar to those in our solar system."

Has our arrogance possibly kept us from making advancements in our knowledge about the Universe? What will we discover next? Where else might liquid be lurking?


What do you think?

;)

:evilgrin:

that the fluid was liquid methane.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassini/cassini20091217.html

and I did quote a paragraph saying it was methane. But that does not rule out life. The methane liquid could very well encourage life; what is damaging to the idea of life on Titan is the -180 degree Celsius temperature. But as Ralf Jaumann says in the article "you never know."

It may come down to us making a particularly arrogant assumption that life on another planet would be similar to life on Earth and therefore require Earth-like temperatures.

because water has a polar molecule (the hyrdogen atoms are on the same side of the molecule), which means it dissolves many ionic substances. Life as we know it depends on these - see, for instance, http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/chemical/watersol.html#c1 . Methane, on the other hand, it perfectly tetrahedral, and thus has no molecular dipole at all, so liquid methane wouldn't be a good ionic solvent. This would limit the kind of reactions possible for any life. Maybe it could all work out, but given how fundamental ions, acidity, and electric charge are to our life processes, it'd be very, very different from us.

Ammonia has a dipole, though, and is liquid (at earth atmospheric pressure) from -78 to -33 centigrade - so there are plenty of possibilities with that at lower temperatures. An article on it

that I would be shocked, flat our shocked, if it in any way resembled the life that we are familiar with here on Earth. I think it would be far more likely to resemble something so alien to us that we may not even recognize it as life without extensive study and understanding.

Plant life and Animal life, for example, are drastically different and they both developed on the same planet under the same circumstances. Whatever life is out there in the Universe, the odds seem that most of it would be far, far, far more different than animals are from trees.

Part of the idea I'm getting at is that if a person had never seen an ocean, or any kind of marine life, and saw a planet covered in water it may assume that life would not exist there because it was so different than life on their planet where everything breathed oxygen.

Now what you are talking about would create life in a drastically different way than any of the above mentioned life forms. It would literally be creating it in a whole new way from the bottom up. That would be amazing to encounter such life forms. I would say encounter because I wouldn't even know if "meeting" that kind of life form would be possible as it may be so different that it was un-meetable. They may not even have DNA as a building block of life. You never know it could be something so from scratch that it re-writes our definition of what life is like.

I also doubt that any life form we encounter (if we ever do) will be able to communicate with us... even if that life form is "intelligent" life.

But those are all just my opinions, and I will likely never know if I am right or wrong because I do not think we will encounter/be contacted/or whatever by alien life before my life is over.

Either way, I wouldn't bet any money that there was life on this moon. I do not think there is life on this moon, but I wouldn't bet money against it either.

Still, I think that having a liquid on Titan lifts a veil on a lot of our misconceptions about the Universe. Maybe not the misconceptions of all scientists, although I think too many scientists think inside the box, but it certainly does a number on the misconceptions of many ordinary people living their day to day lives.

:thumbsup:

I'd recommend anyone here read it if they find this sort of thing interesting.

This part was especially interesting:

"The finding shows that the shoreline of Kraken Mare has been stable over the last three years and that Titan has an ongoing hydrological cycle that brings liquids to the surface, said Ralf Jaumann ..."

us from discovering other such things...

As for where else liquid might be lurking? I have no idea!

It's very cool!

1.) We have fallen short of our near-earth object discovery goal (which is vital for our safety as the reality of asteroids is that without full near-earth object discovery we may not have but a few minutes warning before one large enough to wipe out our species strikes us)

2.) NASA, which currently is being starved of funding, has provided us with huge benefits to our society's technological advancement, as well as the opportunity to prolong the human race beyond the life of our planet Earth.

3.) Because there is a true value to the human condition in finding out knowledge about something simply for the sake of learning something new.

Sigh.

and I did quote a paragraph from the article saying it was methane. Methane does not rule out life. The methane liquid could encourage life; what is damaging to the idea of life on Titan is the -180 degree Celsius temperature. But as Ralf Jaumann says in the article "you never know."

It may come down to us making a particularly arrogant assumption that life on another planet would be similar to life on Earth and therefore require Earth-like temperatures.

I would not bet even a dime of money that there was life on this particular moon, but I would not bet an obscenely large sum against it either.

There is much more to discover.

we are on the grand scale of something as large as the Universe. It's just amazing to look up at all the billions of stars in the night sky and think about all the billions of solar systems we know nothing about. :D

Thanks for posting this. :)

Crownprincebandar also posted a link to a very informative article on this liquid. I think it's a few posts above yours if you want to read it and check it out :)

I love reading about the latest astronomical discoveries. :)

"Has our arrogance possibly kept us from making advancements in our knowledge about the Universe? What will we discover next? Where else might liquid be lurking?"-Duh! The answer is yes!

I was surprised when they were surprised to find an "extra-solar planet" in the 1990s; I'd always assumed, with ALL those stars, SOME of them had to have planets around them, some with life on them, even if we never found out, statistically.....it's gotta be. But I'm not a scientist.

that we exist.

R* = 10/year (10 stars formed per year, on the average over the life of the galaxy)
fp = 0.5 (half of all stars formed will have planets)
ne = 2 (stars with planets will have 2 planets capable of supporting life)
fl = 1 (100% of these planets will develop life)
fi = 0.01 (1% of which will be intelligent life)
fc = 0.01 (1% of which will be able to communicate)
L = 10,000 years (which will last 10,000 years).
Drake's values give N = 10 × 0.5 × 2 × 1 × 0.01 × 0.01 × 10,000 = 10 (so 10 intelligent civilizations exist in our galaxy at any given time, on average)

That is the moderate estimate.

There are other estimates such as this one which is more than moderate but not considered radical. It is created estimating that an intelligent civilization can last for 50,000 years:

R* = 10/year, fp = 0.5, ne = 2, fl = 1, fi = 0.01, fc = 0.01, and L = 50,000 years
N = 10 × 0.5 × 2 × 1 × 0.01 × 0.01 × 50,000 = 50 (so 50 intelligent civilizations exist in our galaxy at any given time, on average)



There is a much more liberal estimate. It is created estimating that intelligent life can last for 100,000 years:

R* = 20/year, fp = 0.1, ne = 0.5, fl = 1, fi = 0.5, fc = 0.1, and L = 100,000 years
N = 20 × 0.1 × 0.5 × 1 × 0.5 × 0.1 × 100,000 = 5,000. ((so 50 intelligent civilizations exist in our galaxy at any given time, on average)


And then there is a pessimistic one that only works if you use figures that state an intelligent civilization only lasts for 500 years. (which I think would make life on Earth an abnormality)

R* = 10/year, fp = 0.5, ne = 2, fl = 1, fi = 0.001, fc = 0.01, and L = 500 years
N = 10 × 0.5 × 2 × 1 × 0.001 × 0.01 × 500 = 0.05 (we are probably alone. but even that is not certain.)

From who did you hear in the 80s that water off the earth was impossible? Obviously not from anyone remotely related with the field of cosmology or physics.

Also people were not "surprised" to find planets, us scientist are not that naive. Part of science is to validate theories and models with empirical data, for eons the possibility of planetary bodies orbiting other stars was a given from a theoretical point of view. But theory does not become fact until there is data to back up the assertions. So it is not that people were surprised to find planets, as much as they were delighted to prove the models correct in that regard... thus making those initial assumptions fact.

Because I said so.

I've always thought naming planets with numbers was a little odd, but I am sure they have a reason and purpose for it. Some kind of system I haven't taken the time to learn yet or what not.

as part of the original posts.

because the temp is -180 C and the atmospheric pressure is very different than on Earth. Though we could possibly visit Titan, send a rover there, or who knows. If there is even a small chance of life, however, then we should be very careful with it's environment.

Titan is 800 MILLION miles away from the sun!

Though the Sun is also very bright and light can certainly travel far :)

:eyes:

800 million miles away from Earth :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enceladus_(moon)#Possible_water_ocean

That's been known to have liquid-water geysers for about a year now.

Since you're apparently staying current on this (and I'm out of the loop), is Europa still believed to have an ocean under all that ice?

And flammable. But there's no oxygen, so don't worry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremophile

I don't necessarily feel that there is life on this planet, but some people make bad assumptions that because there is no oxygen or because it is very cold has some kind of definitive baring on the matter.
I don't know if that was what you were implying however, because your post was rather short. So the link is more for the general public that might read this I guess. :)

http://images.google.com/url?source=imgres&ct=img&q=&usg=AFQjCNF_uEaYx4b6CBT0sJ2rUnQTjoFV6A

:shrug:

It is filled with facts of the galaxy and universe, and demonstrates our existence in proportion to the universe, in a humorous manner.

http://dingo.care-mail.com/cards/flash/5409/galaxy.swf

and celestial bodies.

There are endless resources out there too; like in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, endless metals to be had from them. And there is life out there, I promise, intelligent life too.

Thank you very much for posting this!