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What. How are they going to detect life on titan? They can't even detect life on mars. I mean to say, even when we know the kind of life we are looking for we g
by plutonorm 7y ago
What. How are they going to detect life on titan? They can't even detect life on mars. I mean to say, even when we know the kind of life we are looking for we get confused about how to confirm or deny its existence. So they want to design a small flying drone that works in extremely hostile conditions, that also has the kinds of sophisticated instruments needed to look for life? And not just life, life of potentially a completely unknown form, given the widely different surface conditions. This just seems like a weird mission. Finish up the Viking labelled release experiments on mars first, then go take a look in the mid Venusian atmosphere. Then take a gander at europa.... Weird mission
- calcifer 7y ago> Finish up the Viking labelled release experiments on mars first, then go take a look in the mid Venusian atmosphere. Then take a gander at europa This is exactly why I like HN. Here, you have the true experts contributing valuable science with their credentials laid bare, as opposed to the pencil pushers at NASA who probably only approved this mission because it sounded cool.
- aeorgnoieang 7y agoI think you need to relax the idea of 'detecting life' towards 'detecting evidence of life', i.e. evidence of populations of locally-entropy-defeating systems that reproduce. Once you relax the requirement that 'answers' must be 'yes or 'no' to 'more likely' or 'less likely', it should be clearer how one would go about searching for life. For one, is there chemical activity one wouldn't otherwise expect if there was no life?