Say, did you guy see the news released by the imaging team for the Cassini mission to Saturn?
Cassini's camera repeatedly recorded the spray of ice crystals and water vapor from Enceladus' south polar region. Cassini's images showed that the geysers rose hundreds of miles above the surface. Based on the imagery, they concluded that most of the ice crystals fell back to the surface as snow. The plumes through which Cassini flew last July contain several organic materials like methane, CO2, propane, etc. That is great news for those who continue to search for living organisms or life forms on other planets. With the presence of liquid water and organic materials, Enceladus may be suitable for colonization. Don those spacesuits dude and dudettes!
You can read more on this finding by clicking the following link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11736311/ I also heard that Saturns moon Europa can support life under its frozen surface. I only heard that Europa had ice but this is the first time I heard of that moon Enceladus. It look similar because they are both have a ice surface. If that moon could really support life and the evidence to back it up was extremely high and accurate then the whole world would have heard it. Is there an atmoshere on that moon? If not I don't think that life could exist. But maybe below the surface where there is warm temperatures. I still can't believe that life could really exist there. They should have collected examples and made thousands of photos. The moon is sooooo tiny there is no gravity to hold and make an atmosphere.
| Stealth wrote: |
| The moon is sooooo tiny there is no gravity to hold and make an atmosphere. |
Some of the moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn are bigger than Earth.a planets size does have something to do with life being ther true but i believe the speed of the planets rotation also has to be factored in, after all if earth didn't rotate I doubt we would be here talking about it, and life does not actually require a thick atmosphere to live in, just one that supports life.
Oooh, moon!
Yeah, it'd be nice for a change of scenery.
I wonder why the Earth spins on its axis.
Lucky us, I guess.
Why does earth spin on its axis? its something like this, a giant mass hit the earth giving it the spin it has to day, Or at least thats how I understand it anyways. Apparently that was also how the moon was created, either that or you would go with the theory that the moon sort of defied gravity and floated away from earth by its self, or even more unlikely the earth caught a passing orbiting body. But thats doubtful because the moon is made up of pretty much the exact same stuff as earth is. Here's hopeing that nasa actually gets a good 
on how to build and launch a space ship that doesn't cost several million dollars at a time. Life does rely a lot on water sources (well, at least from what we know), and atmosphere isn't always a condition. Of course, however, if we wish to get there someday, having a nice little gas pouch and decent gravity would be nice. But one can't have all can he? 
Earth has a bunch of conditions which we were VERY lucky to all get, but it isn't excluded that life could grow in different conditions. Still, in the solar system, the problem of most theorically "host" celestial corpses is the lack of liquid water, little gravity and little if any atmosphere. Just have a look at Mars: wouldn't it be nice to have it spinning a bit quicker, so air would be attracted and stick there for a while? Then slowly an atmosphere would grow, temperatures would regulate, etc... It'd still be quick cooler than around here, by the way. | Reaper wrote: |
| Why does Earth spin on its axis? Its something like this, a giant mass hit the Earth giving it the spin it has to day, Or at least that's how I understand it anyways. |
Earth did not get its spin from an impact by another body...
ALL planets and stars rotate; it's a result of their mass, weight and the effect of other bodies nearby. The lead reason people think that the Earth is the only planet that rotates is the moon, which seems not to rotate… as it always shows us the same side.
But the Moon does in-fact rotates like all other celestial bodies. It seems not to because it is so close to the Earth, its rotation has synced with ours. It takes the Moon about 28 days to orbit the Earth and 28 to rotate around its axis, therefore from an Earthly prospective it seems not to rotate, always displaying the same side to us. Its called being 'Tidally Locked' and it exists in many planet-moon relationships. (http://home.case.edu/~sjr16/extras_glossary.html#_tidallylocked)
Mercury, being the closest planet to the sun has a hard time rotating around it's axis, but it still does... in fact it takes it more time to rotate around it's axis then it takes it to orbit the sun! That means that Mercury's days are longer than its years!
Rotation affects gravity and magnetism; it also fosters weather patterns and ocean currents. It's vital for life that a planet rotates, but as we are yet to find a planet, star, asteroid or any other celestial body that doesn't... I don't think we should consider it a prerequisite for life... it's just like saying a planet must be a planet in order to be a life sustaining planet...
| Reaper wrote: |
| Apparently that was also how the moon was created, either that or you would go with the theory that the moon sort of defied gravity and floated away from Earth by its self, or even more unlikely the Earth caught a passing orbiting body. But that's doubtful because the moon is made up of pretty much the exact same stuff as Earth is. |
The Moon consists of a lot of compounds found on the Earth's surface, but lacks heaver compounds found deep in the Earth's core. This correlates with the leading theory of how the Moon was created: That the Moon was created after a large object collided with the Earth, throwing huge amounts of debris from the young Earth. The debris cooled and gravitated towards each other and over the millennia formed the Moon.
Don't disparage the 'Caught Asteroid' theory though. Scientist agree that it is quite possible that the young Earth caught a passing asteroid in it's gravity well. The asteroid pulled dust rock and asteroids toward it (just as the Earth did) and slowly built up to it current size.
And now some interesting facts:
The Moon isn’t the only natural satellite of Earth. Recently scientists found that a small asteroid got caught in Earth's gravity and is currently orbiting our planet. (http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/second_moon_991029.html)
Most planets in our solar system have moons. Mars has 2, while Jupiter has 63. (http://www.dustbunny.com/afk/planets/jupiter/jupmoons.html)
Another interesting fact is that many scientists consider the Earth-Moon relationship to be a binary one. That means that the Moon should actually be classified as a planet! You see, most moons are very small by comparison to their parents, and therefore exert very little force on them. The Earth is 3.67 times larger than the Moon compare that with Jupiter which is 27.05 times larger than its largest moon Ganymede. (Ganymede by the way, is larger than Mercury, Pluto and our Moon!) But our moon is almost a quarter the size of Earth and affects the movement of the Earth so much its candidate for classification as a Planet. The same relationship can bee witnessed between Pluto and its 'moon' Charon. These two are almost the same size and are so close together that they may even be sharing an atmosphere! (http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/pluto/binary_planet.html&edu=high)
For more info about moons and rotation check this out: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/moon_definition_040103.html[url]Electricat, i believe you misunderstood me, I was already assuming that before the earth got hit that it was already spinning but another object collided changing the rotation rate of the earth.
And while it is possible that an asteroid got pulled into the earths gravitational pull, its very unlikely especially seeing it does not look anything like an asteroid. Also keep in mind that we only know the mineral compounds on the surface of one part of the moon so it very well could be the other materials from earth are just beneath the lighter stuff.
| Reaper wrote: |
| Electricat, i believe you misunderstood me, I was already assuming that before the earth got hit that it was already spinning but another object collided changing the rotation rate of the earth.. |
Oh, I agree that the Earth's spin might and probably was affected by the many collisions of space derby on its surface. Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Actually, Reaper, you misunderstood me as well.
| Reaper wrote: |
| Also keep in mind that we only know the mineral compounds on the surface of one part of the moon so it very well could be the other materials from earth are just beneath the lighter stuff. |
The Moon's surface has been heavily documented and studied apart from the 6 successful manned missions to the Moon; Lunar Satellites have clocked hundreds of thousands of hours of near Moon observation. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_artificial_satellites_and_space_probes)
The contents of the Moon, both surface and core have been studied extensively, both directly and remotely using spectrometry and other remote sensing systems. Today, science claims to know exactly what materials are present in all layers of the Moon. The heavier metals are their but in very low percentages so they're barely relevant.
The compounds on the Moon suggest the 'Impact Creation" theory is correct. An asteroid or planetoid hitting the proto-Earth would throw up exactly those compounds found closest tot the surface. That is the case with the materials in the Earth. The 'Impact Creation' theory is also the one I believe is closest tot the truth.
| Reaper wrote: |
| And while it is possible that an asteroid got pulled into the earths gravitational pull, its very unlikely especially seeing it does not look anything like an asteroid. |
You wouldn't look like an asteroid either if you spent 3 billion years collecting passing comets, meteors, asteroids, dust and ice. The 'Caught Asteroid' theory does not claim that the Moon is an asteroid. It claims that an asteroid, caught in the young proto-Earth's gravity and forced into an orbit, was the seed around which the Moon was formed. At that early stage in the solar system there were many more objects around the Earth. In fact the tiny proto-Earth was surrounded by a cloud of dust and vapor, with boulders the size of countries flying past constantly. Gradually the planets of the solar system collected these clouds and meteors, cleaning out the space between the planets.
For a long time the Earth was an odd shaped clump of rock, dust and ice, it took many years for it to reach the size and relatively round shape it has today, over that time it collected literally billions of chunks of ice and rock, millions of asteroids and meteors and thousands of comets. The Moon, though younger, is made up of the lighter compounds found in the Proto-Earth Orbital Tract and had plenty of time to set those lighter elements into a (almost) spherical shape. Even the naked eye can see how many impacts have occurred on the lunar surface, each one adding to the seed asteroid's size, weight and gravity. Slowly as it built up its gravity caught larger and larger objects, packing them into the modern Moon's shape. Again, I don't think this is the correct theory, but it is a valid one.Europa is a moon of Jupiter, not Saturn. It has a thick surface of ice, and from the looks of it scientists have hypothesised that there is liquid water underneath. The surface of has a bunch of 'rifts' and 'cracks' that have led to such conclusions.
On a seperate topic, the rotating earth is actually slowing down, due primarily to the moon's effect on the tides. The gravitational interaction between the two bodies sloshes the oceans arounds, which necessarily dissipates energy by ever so slightly warming the water temperatures. Thanks to COE, this energy has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere happens to be the rotational energy of the Earth. So in some ungodly number of years the earth will have a light side and a dark side, and all life as we know it will be gone. But we'll probably kill ourselves well before then anyway.
if there is geological (volcanic) activity on those moons they my have some type of life, it just depends on what you define as life,
Life, if I remember well, is confirmed by the presence of linked carbon and hydrogen, because this produce is typically biologic. But all of this is considered from what we know and what we have seen.
For the volcanic activity, true, it would likely be in the important factors, though I do not know if it is imperative. So this leaves Venus, (earth by the way), Mars and some satellites which names I do not remember.
If only Venus was a bit colder, it would be a nice potential place for life to appear. Atmosphere, volcanoes, water: all's there already. But it's all too chaotic and hot. Though Earth was just like that in the beginning...
| ocalhoun wrote: |
| Stealth wrote: | | The moon is sooooo tiny there is no gravity to hold and make an atmosphere. |
Some of the moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn are bigger than Earth. |
Name one, please.
Jupiter's biggest moon is Ganymede, weighing 1.48e23kg, diameter 5262km.
Saturn's biggest moon is Titan, weighing 1.35e23kg, diameter 5150km.
Earth weighs 5.972e24kg - approximately forty times greater than either - and has a diameter of 12,756km- more than twice the size of either.
Ganymede and Titan are a fair deal bigger than our own moon, but don't approach Earth.Everybody knows or should know by now that there is life outside Earth. It should not be surprising to find extraterrestrial water...
| Kashinilaya wrote: |
| Everybody knows or should know by now that there is life outside Earth. It should not be surprising to find extraterrestrial water... |
Human ignorance you just got to love it 
Yeah i think there is life outside earth...We will discover many of things.I belive because Science and my religion confirm me...I haven't be surprised and nobody should suprise...
| Electricat wrote: |
You wouldn't look like an asteroid either if you spent 3 billion years collecting passing comets, meteors, asteroids, dust and ice. |
Electricat,
You comment begs the question, when (not if) the earth gets hit by large enough NEO, will we be successful in diverting or obliterating it before it collides with earth?
"As of November 13, 2005, 3,716 NEO's have been discovered: 57 near-Earth comets and 3,659 near-Earth asteroids. Of those there are 301 Aten asteroids, 1,433 Amor asteroids, and 1,920 Apollo asteroids. There are 736 NEO's which are classified as potentially hazardous asteroids."the definition of water is a little different in that moon....
not the kind of what we are used to but methane based liquid....
