We need to refocus from what’s out there; which is really expensive to get to, to our nest which we are poisoning. There is no one, brain, person, messiah or AI program that can save us but ourselves. We can’t get out there if we don’t use all of our collective grey matter to solve our planet’s problems. Grey matter is grey it is not male, female, or any shade of skin color. We need all of our grey power to get us out of our current mess, not Orange, red or blue. Remember that when you mix all watercolors together, the color one gets is grey.
Where did our curiosity and desire to learn new ideas go? It has been eroded constantly since the first moon landing. Dumbing down of humanity has accelerated since then and without learning and curiosity are we no better than amoeba?
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Wonderful treat of an article to read. Art and science, these images evoke both for me, thanks for this. I’ll look up tonight on the way home.
6
I can only imagine the alien marine life that could exist on Enceladus, especially since our ocean life is so strange and spectacular here on Earth.
7
"... the stripes are found only at the Enceladian south pole."
The Times should have found a better photo of the stripes. They are partially visible in the lower right, slanting from the center upward to the right where they disappear in the shadow.
A web search for "Enceladus tiger stripes" will find a photo with annotations.
3
Curious how the moon's observers determine "north" and "south" of a celestial body in (outer)space.
Is it merely from an earth-centric POV?
3
I am just so tantalized by Enceladus and Europa. I imagine oceans teaming with life, colonies of bacteria and tube worms living around the hydrothermal vents on their sea floors, bioluminescent creatures plying their cold and otherwise dark waters, oblivious to the universe beyond. I fear going to my grave wondering what, if anything, lives down there below miles of ice, with a NASA mission to find out on the launch pad.
8
cool. literally.
Interesting article and fascinating hypothesis. However, moon is so small that it can fit between NYC and Buffalo. So, there is no magnetic field like earth to protect from external radiation. One thing most folks forget that life on earth's surface exists as we know due to the magnetic field and the thin ozone layer. Our atmosphere is thinner than an eggshell in comparison. Hope we figure out solution(s) to the environment and ecological mismanagement of the last 100 years.
10
Fascinating. Thanks for this window into a distant planet's moon and into the scientists investigating it.
5
I keep wondering if Enceladus' ice is so thick and all encompassing that it has begun to operate like tectonic plates. Or if the ice is simply a shell covering an ocean and oceanic crust.
1
"Dr. Hemingway and his colleagues modeled the evolution of the moon’s icy shell, ..."
That means they wrote a computer program.
The full paper is behind a paywall, but this note is on the web page with the abstract:
"The computer code required to carry out the calculations discussed herein is available on request from the corresponding author."
The computer code should be made publicly accessible without having to "request" anything. There are websites, such as GitHub, expressly designed for the purpose of making computer code publicly accessible.
The "Acknowledgements" say that the work was partly funded by a NASA Solar System Workings grant. That means that the taxpayers have a right to see the code.
11
Yes so let’s get a big noisy protest group together, camp out in front of NASA’s headquarters and demand our right to be immediately given access to this critical and vitally important computer code.
10
Amazing seeing these ‘tiger stripes ‘ !
5
I’m continually amused and disheartened by exploration of space when we have such little knowledge of our home planet, especially when our bodies are directly tied to and dependent on it. Studies of people who’ve been in space for any extended period show a reduction in health. We are tied to the rotation of the earth and our exposure to sunlight.
The other part of space exploration is that, even if a safe environment is found, only extremely wealthy people will have the means to fly there. But all less wealthy people can take heart because those wealthy families will fade away rapidly on those far away planets or moons.
7
Cheer up!
4
Yes and I too will continue to believe whatever incoherent nonsense inhabits my brain or escapes my lips.
I did not imagine that something as wondrous as Enceladus could be cut down to an opportunity to comment on social inequality and some people’s distaste for the wealthy. But you’ve done it. And gotten several “recommends” for it. Incredible how the comments section of any newspaper attracts the disenchanted.
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