6 ms·

Cassini Watches Mysterious Feature Evolve in Titan Sea

48 points by mdturnerphys 12y ago

varelse 12y ago
Here we go again... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/6979855/Nasa-photographs-trees-on-Mars.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/6979855/Nasa-photog... http://www.space.com/11057-science-claims-alien-life.html http://www.space.com/11057-science-claims-alien-life.html
- not_that_noob 12y ago
  There is a finite and nonzero probability that this could be signs of alien life. Cynicism is right ~99.99% of the time, but it is 0.01% that gets humans to build rocketships and reach for the stars.
  - dalke 12y ago
    While romantic imagery, it's cynics who propose that we 'reach for the stars' because there's no future on Earth, due to population explosion or nuclear war or environmental collapse or other doom. We've also built an awful lot of rockets for war, to bring the power of the stars down on our enemies as H-bombs. The Gemini series launched on top of a repurposed ICBM. I don't know if developing nuclear bomb delivery vehicles falls under cynicism, but it's not part of reaching for the stars.
- tjradcliffe 12y ago
  Your second link is a weird mixture of perfectly sensible stuff, complete nutjobbery, and ancient history. Simply because nuts misinterpret evidence and refuse to change their minds when their errors are pointed out doesn't mean that all interpretations of all evidence pointing to alien life is nutjobbery. And simply because scientists have been wrong before about features like Martian canals (which were less generally accepted within the astronomical community than they were without it) does not mean they will always be wrong. In particular, the Martian meteorite micro-fossils are fascinating if not completely compelling as ab initio evidence for life. The important thing to remember is that if you handed one to a competent authority and told them it was a fossil-bearing rock from the appropriate locale on Earth, they would very likely say the structures were (uncontroversial, terrestrial) micro-fossils. The debate is about how much the meteoric micro-structures raise the plausibility of the claim "There was ancient microbial life on Mars", not whether they either a) exist or b) are consistent with terrestrial micro-structures. The skeptics say, "Interesting but not compelling", the non-skeptics say, "If it's good enough evidence for ancient life on Earth, it's good enough evidence for ancient life on Mars." The difference, as tends to be the case with these things, is in their prior plausibilities. The skeptics (rightly, in my view) are saying that terrestrial micro-fossils are more persuasive than Martian micro-fossils because we are virtually certain there was ancient life on Earth, whereas it's still a wide open question on Mars, so we never really use the micro-fossils to answer the question "Was there ancient life on Earth?" but rather to make some claims about what kind of life it was. As for the Titan images, any time-varying process could be due to life. It might be a shoal of hydrocarbon herrings, or some Saturnian Kraken being woken from its long sleep by the alien emanations of the spacecraft overhead, although I can't see any reasonable prior that would give such propositions greater plausibility than the more geologically-oriented suggestions in the article.
- rgbrenner 12y ago
  The article (in contrast to your links) doesn't mention or suggest life as the source of the changes in the photos.
  - varelse 12y ago
    True, but do you really think it's going to take long for the crazies to come out of the woodwork and start discussing the irrefutable evidence for the alien seaside city on Titan? After that, when it gets refuted with clearer imagery and it turns out to just be something really interesting and cool, they'll say we nuked it to hide the evidence. Just wait. Or have I just channel surfed past the "History" channel too many times? http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread468075/pg1 http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread468075/pg1
joshkpeterson 12y ago
In b4 Solaris
- f2f 12y ago
  you made my day!
egometry 12y ago
Luckily, this isn't Europa, so we may attempt landings there.
- kjs3 12y ago
  Unfortunately, it's Cthulhu rising from the lake, so we're still screwed...
nether 12y ago
Perhaps it is sentient?
mturmon 12y ago
One of the insights of remote sensing has been that, if you look for changes, you will tend to find them. And generally you are surprised by the things you discover. The linked article is one, and various Martian phenomena are another - @varelse linked the landslides, but there are also dust devils, winds, and ice caps. The geysers on Enceladus are another example. Nighttime astronomy has also had these surprises -- supernovae (leading to the discovery of dark energy), gamma ray bursts, blazars. All because we had the computational and data-gathering machinery to compare observations from surveys. In retrospect, it perhaps wasn't surprising, but I think discipline scientists have indeed been surprised by the variety of phenomena observed.
twic 12y ago
So this is that Didymo stuff then? Man, gets everywhere.

48 points by mdturnerphys 12y ago

Here we go again... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/6979855/Nasa-photographs-trees-on-Mars.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/6979855/Nasa-photog... http://www.space.com/11057-science-claims-alien-life.html http://www.space.com/11057-science-claims-alien-life.html

not_that_noob 12y ago
There is a finite and nonzero probability that this could be signs of alien life. Cynicism is right ~99.99% of the time, but it is 0.01% that gets humans to build rocketships and reach for the stars.
- dalke 12y ago
  While romantic imagery, it's cynics who propose that we 'reach for the stars' because there's no future on Earth, due to population explosion or nuclear war or environmental collapse or other doom. We've also built an awful lot of rockets for war, to bring the power of the stars down on our enemies as H-bombs. The Gemini series launched on top of a repurposed ICBM. I don't know if developing nuclear bomb delivery vehicles falls under cynicism, but it's not part of reaching for the stars.
tjradcliffe 12y ago
Your second link is a weird mixture of perfectly sensible stuff, complete nutjobbery, and ancient history. Simply because nuts misinterpret evidence and refuse to change their minds when their errors are pointed out doesn't mean that all interpretations of all evidence pointing to alien life is nutjobbery. And simply because scientists have been wrong before about features like Martian canals (which were less generally accepted within the astronomical community than they were without it) does not mean they will always be wrong. In particular, the Martian meteorite micro-fossils are fascinating if not completely compelling as ab initio evidence for life. The important thing to remember is that if you handed one to a competent authority and told them it was a fossil-bearing rock from the appropriate locale on Earth, they would very likely say the structures were (uncontroversial, terrestrial) micro-fossils. The debate is about how much the meteoric micro-structures raise the plausibility of the claim "There was ancient microbial life on Mars", not whether they either a) exist or b) are consistent with terrestrial micro-structures. The skeptics say, "Interesting but not compelling", the non-skeptics say, "If it's good enough evidence for ancient life on Earth, it's good enough evidence for ancient life on Mars." The difference, as tends to be the case with these things, is in their prior plausibilities. The skeptics (rightly, in my view) are saying that terrestrial micro-fossils are more persuasive than Martian micro-fossils because we are virtually certain there was ancient life on Earth, whereas it's still a wide open question on Mars, so we never really use the micro-fossils to answer the question "Was there ancient life on Earth?" but rather to make some claims about what kind of life it was. As for the Titan images, any time-varying process could be due to life. It might be a shoal of hydrocarbon herrings, or some Saturnian Kraken being woken from its long sleep by the alien emanations of the spacecraft overhead, although I can't see any reasonable prior that would give such propositions greater plausibility than the more geologically-oriented suggestions in the article.
rgbrenner 12y ago
The article (in contrast to your links) doesn't mention or suggest life as the source of the changes in the photos.
- varelse 12y ago
  True, but do you really think it's going to take long for the crazies to come out of the woodwork and start discussing the irrefutable evidence for the alien seaside city on Titan? After that, when it gets refuted with clearer imagery and it turns out to just be something really interesting and cool, they'll say we nuked it to hide the evidence. Just wait. Or have I just channel surfed past the "History" channel too many times? http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread468075/pg1 http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread468075/pg1

joshkpeterson 12y ago

In b4 Solaris

f2f 12y ago
you made my day!

egometry 12y ago

Luckily, this isn't Europa, so we may attempt landings there.

kjs3 12y ago
Unfortunately, it's Cthulhu rising from the lake, so we're still screwed...

nether 12y ago

Perhaps it is sentient?

mturmon 12y ago

One of the insights of remote sensing has been that, if you look for changes, you will tend to find them. And generally you are surprised by the things you discover. The linked article is one, and various Martian phenomena are another - @varelse linked the landslides, but there are also dust devils, winds, and ice caps. The geysers on Enceladus are another example. Nighttime astronomy has also had these surprises -- supernovae (leading to the discovery of dark energy), gamma ray bursts, blazars. All because we had the computational and data-gathering machinery to compare observations from surveys. In retrospect, it perhaps wasn't surprising, but I think discipline scientists have indeed been surprised by the variety of phenomena observed.

twic 12y ago

So this is that Didymo stuff then? Man, gets everywhere.