4 ms·
yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38652897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38652897 Hydrogen cyanide, acetylene, propylene, ethane, propene.
by ianai 3y ago
yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38652897 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38652897
Hydrogen cyanide, acetylene, propylene, ethane, propene.
There's bacteria that live off acetylene (though surely abiotic processes too).
I suspect this indicates plenty of energy and complex chemistry on Enceladus. Some of those compounds are energetic while others (I think?) are combustion bi-products.
Otherwise, I wonder when/if we'll ever see oxygen (O2) confirmed in a study like this? I realize it's highly/easily bound up in reactions, but what a finding that'd be. They list a probability of 0.64 (aka 64%) chance of O2 here. Imagining a surface of water ice and near vacuum atmosphere, I suspect any free oxygen would be very difficult to detect. But they also see co2 so maybe any oxygen is quickly used up?
source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-023-02160-0.epdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-023-02160-0.epdf
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- passwordoops 3y agoHydrogen cyanide, acetylene, propylene, ethane, propene would all react very quickly with oxygen, if it is being produced. I imagine like early earth, if there are organisms they are following an anoxic pathway
- ianai 3y agoSo is it because the life signals so far suggest simple life that money isn't really pouring into an expedition? That's my inkling anyway. Turns out us apes are still far more interested in everyday stuff than even life outside our sphere. i.e. I would expect "enthusiasm" to look like discussions on building the infrastructure for multiple missions out there. Communications way points, some basic resource stuff, etc. Stuff to make getting things in that system more robust and timely. Edit: Maybe experiment/do the laser propulsion tech. "Lighthouses" at critical points.
- staplers 3y agoThe discovery of even the most base simple lifeform outside Earth would be forever world-changing. Society, religion, mass institutions would be forced to reconcile with this fact. I don't think it's necessarily about money.
- NateEag 3y agoWhat do you think would change about religions? The only one I know well is evangelical Christianity, having been raised in it. I've read through the Protestant Bible several times, and I'm not aware of anything in it that changes meaningfully if there's other life forms in the universe.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- martin-t 3y agoYou overestimate people. Most wouldn't care at all, a few would say that's cool and move on. Religious people would just say their favorite god created those too. Unless the aliens were more advanced than us, nothing would change.
- staplers 3y agoIn the short term yes. The church accepted Galileo's heliocentric theory at first because it helped fix their calendars, later they realized what it truly meant as the general public started connecting the dots.
- cwillu 3y agoThe struggle with the religious types is forever that they can't be pinned down in the details: it's not that new information can't be assimilated because it conflicts with doctrine, it's that doctrine, aside from a few very core concepts, is extremely fluid and will seamlessly flow and change to admit the conflicting information without affecting anything of importance.
- Symmetry 3y agoI'd be very surprised if we saw oxygen. Photosynthesis took much longer to evolve on Earth than life did in the first place, and on Enceladus you have both a thick layer of ice preventing sunlight from reaching liquid water and also a much dimmer Sun in the first place due to how far away Jupiter is.
- Sharlin 3y ago*Saturn, but yes. If there’s life, free oxygen would likely be incredibly toxic to it, just like it was to early life on Earth (and still is to some chemosynthesis-based ocean floor life).