Saturn's Fountain of Life?

This is cool. 

NASA's Cassini probe found pools of liquid water -- the key ingredient for the formation of life -- on Enceladus, a moon of Saturn.

Spewing out of Enceladus's south pole is a geyser, a fizzling spray of what looks like ice-crystals ejected from a big liquid reservoir. The presence of liquid water indicates a heat source (it's 330 degrees below zero on most of Enceladus's surface, so something must be heating the area), as well as the possibility that life exists in a form we might recognize.

Liquid water beneath the surface of Enceladus for hundreds of millions of years?  That's plenty long enough to bring together the building blocks of life.  This, in my opinion, is well worth exploration. 

In August Cassini is set for another fly-by and we'll get more data about this discovery.  I hope we know more soon, and that this is the first step in moving scientific exploration out of the hands of a theocratic administration worried more about keeping the biblical creation myth protected than discoveries the wonders of our universe.

- rick, space explorer.

Comments

[a rose is a rose]

i was ALL set to put my longjohns away. minus 330 degrees? i can't feel my toes

in all seriousness. this is wicked cool

[CV Rick]

Keep your longjohns on, we've got a space voyage to go on.

[a rose is a rose]

ONLY if we can build a tank in our spaceship for WHALES

[CV Rick]

Whales it is . . . no sleeping on that spaceship what with the whale racket.