ALIEN HUNT: Water similar to life-bearing Earth lakes FOUND ON MOON of Saturn Astroboffins reckon they have discovered the pH value - the acidity or alkalinity - of water plumes spurting forth from Saturn's moon Enceladus. The findings are considered another step forward in the hunt for alien life, as the possible warm sub-icecap oceans of Enceladus are thought to be one of the most promising habitats off …
I, for one, am sick of these motherf*ing snakes on this motherf*ing moon!!
In all seriousness, I am getting tired of all this potential life on other planets crap. I understand that you have to write your dissertation on something, and why not write it on the analysis of data from a space probe, but wild speculation about life on a planet is tantamount to click-bait.
I, for one, am sick of these motherf*ing snakes on this motherf*ing moon!!
I gave you an upvote because of the movie reference, only.
but wild speculation about life on a planet is tantamount to click-bait.
Proof that life can exist elsewhere would be a 'game changer', as life on Earth would not longer be considered unique; it would likely to be the most significant discovery of the past 2000 years (IMHO).
"Proof that life can exist elsewhere would be a 'game changer', as life on Earth would not longer be considered unique; it would likely to be the most significant discovery of the past 2000 years (IMHO)."
So would fusion energy and hover-boards... and a bunch of other things, for that matter. The potential for a discovery to be a "game changer" (LOL i am actually chuckling that you used that phrase) has no bearing on the validity of the data. In fact, it is this pseudo-science-group-think that gets politicians all in a tizzy to start taxing us more. Soon they'll be calling me an "alien life sceptic" too.
on their parade but my high school chemistry tells me that anything with a pH of 11 to 12 will corrode any organic and much inorganic matter present. pH neutral is 7. A pH of 11 to 12 is on the order of very strong lye (NaOH). pH is logarithmic and the value they stated is at the upper end of the measurement range.
All the more reason that PEOPLE should go there to look.
When you say that PEOPLE should go to the Mexican desert moons of Saturn, do you mean anyone in particular, or just some random folk? Would you, yourself, go there?
If you would like to go, I applaud you for it, but, as for myself, I will stay in my lead lined bunker.
As for "serpentization," are we sure they're not just making stuff up?
as presumably a paid reg 'writer'.
Not to mention the clunky style, all of the quotes below are insults to the intelligence or knowledge of any Regtard who isn't just hanging around for the occasional humour value, or as a school-aged troll having some time off.
'the pH value - the acidity or alkalinity'
No shit, thanks for your enlightening words.
'scientists to determine Enceladus' potential for acquiring and hosting life.'
WTF is that supposed to mean, although I suppose that there, you are just quoting whatever source you made your 'article' from.
'the same sodium chloride (NaCl) salt as our oceans here on Earth do, but additional sodium carbonate (Na2CO3)'
You may be an idiot, most readers here are not. Are you being paid by the letter? Way to sound like a condescending fool.
Absolutely, it is my expert opinion on the poor quality of writing on what is clearly a copy-and-paste job by a rather dim bulb.
I am amused that I get so many down-votes for pointing out obvious idiocies like 'salt, if you didn't know, is NaCl'.
If you have a basic education, revisit the article, contemplate just how stupid it is, then tell me 'tut tut'.
Some of us went to school a long (long long) while ago and then went on to do more specialized education consequently, while others may view us as intelligent (possibly) we, and the article author, are quite aware that there may be huge chasms of forgotten knowledge in our lumps of grey matter.
........although of course some of us are just thick and need to be spoon feed this scientificy type stuff.
and to you. If you cannot see the idiocy of the article, just fuck off. You are not earning some kind of extra credit for supporting imbecility on the scale of 'NaCl, salt to those to whom I try to condescend in my very lame article'.
FFS, try to raise your consciousness out of a gutter where you imagine you will get automatic praise for supporting the reg writer, even if he is direly poor.
Wander off to faescesbook or twitland, recruit another 14 or 30 downvotes for me. I am eager to see it, and I do not give a shit.
I do not give a shit for the opinions of people who are clearly just toadies at heart (if you don't know what 'toady' means, you may try consulting a dictionary, could be a little enlightment there).
Only one one thumb down, I want a record-breaking collection.
We'd all like to imagine that the reg readership is relatively sharp in terms of processors, programming, etc.
I am requesting the massive down-vote from the troll and moron crowd. Get me up to 500, hell、 600 negavotes in 24 hours. I will really appreciate it.
" the pH of the Enceladus waters is within the considered limit for what is acceptable to life."
would be better expressed as " the pH of the Enceladus waters is within the considered limit for what is acceptable to extremophile life". There are few things which can handle that kind of alkalinity, and those that can are highly adapted to the specific envorionment.
As to "other forms of life abound"......while that may be true if you're just counting volumes of biomass of the few species present, the statements implied abundance of many varied species is totally incorrect. The biological diversity within a salt lake is very limited and can hardly be described as "abundant"
The catch is that Earth's life probably didn't start out as extremophiles, but began in a nice non-extreme zone, and later evolved to survive places of extreme conditions (just to be clear, you'll note that I wrote "probably" -- I know that our sample space is rather small at the moment).
I would love to see Enceladus prove me wrong, but...
The proposal for serpentine being created from mafic rocks rich in pyroxene or olivine or amphibole that we would get in basalt, dunites, pyroxenites and peridotite can only be a proposal unless these rocks have been identified in the plumes in the forms of small grains.
The specific gravity of the moon, Encelaudus is very low at 1.6 grams per cubic centimeter.
Heavy ultramafic basalts are about 3.2 to 3.5 grams per cubic centimeter. I realize this is an average density and the core could be heavier, but I think we need more proof of these rocks to propose a weathering process like serpentinization of olivine and pyroxene to serpentine and Aegerine Augites.
There is no rock evidence. There is no pH evidence.
The density of the moon worries me too. It is very low.
I think a weathering process on the ultramafic rocks on Earth is being transferred to Encelaudus with no rock evidence.
This is heavy thumb suck pseudo science.
More proof is needed.
Chris Landau (geologist)
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