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Cassini finds WATER!
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miloblithe said:
Because there are rather a lot of religions that either overlook the possibility of extra-terrestrial life or deny its existence. Which would lead to even more religious arguments, religion vs science crusades and general soul searching by some religous leaders.
Orlando Furioso said:
exactly. I hope we find life somewhere else very very soon, because it might finally get people to shut up and realize we're all in this together. Stop fighting and realize we can be so much better off to just help each other. Petty sectarian differences would seem so insignificant, maybe we'd finally have progress toward a planet that isn't constantly threatening to destroy itself
kwajo.com said:
I like your thinking, but I think it's going to take a lot more than just finding life elsewhere to get religions to work together.
Awesome discovery. Always a good thing to find. Hope it pans out that liquid water is indeed present. Why would the religions have a problem with it? Humans didn't know about other planets when they invented the reilgions so we could just file in extra-terrestrial species into the books. It's not like we're going to find intelligent life on Cassini so there's no way to refute it.
EricNau said:How could liquid water be present on a moon that far away from the sun?It would be very cold.
Most likely from an internal heat source. There are moons round Jupiter that are kept warm by the gravitational pull from the planet. It is so huge it causes the crust of the moon to flex in a similar way to the oceans on Earth. The huge energy from the friction creates heat. Io is one of the most volcanic moons (if not the most) in the solar system and most of it's heat comes from tidal sources. Mind you, it's shooting massive geysers of sulfur into the air instead of magma but it's still pretty cool.
There is a moon called Europa orbiting Jupiter that is widely regarded as the most likely place for life, it has a water ice crust that is suspected to be formed over an "ocean" of liquid water heated by the tidal pull of Jupiter.
Recent Cassini images of Saturn's moon Enceladus backlit by the sun show the fountain-like sources of the fine spray of material that towers over the south polar region. This image was taken looking more or less broadside at the "tiger stripe" fractures observed in earlier Enceladus images. It shows discrete plumes of a variety of apparent sizes above the limb (edge) of the moon.
Enceladus:
Full size image: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA06254.jpg
Enceladus:
Full size image: http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA06254.jpg
MrSmith said:
So sad, but so very true!
We're not becoming more tolerant, we're just escalating the conflict.
I really hope life is found elsewhere in the universe soon too as I just think it would be cool. Come on I mean look how big it is and if we are the living things, thats an awful waste of space!
Even if life is found a lot of people wouldn't beleive it anyway. All these radical religions would just say its a tactic to try and dispell there belief anyway so just let them think that...
Even if life is found a lot of people wouldn't beleive it anyway. All these radical religions would just say its a tactic to try and dispell there belief anyway so just let them think that...
MrSmith said:
I think we are still at #1 in many senses. #2 to some extent, and #3 as well.
I can't think of any religions that flagrantly deny the possibility of life elsewhere.mdavey said:
The Bible certainly doesn't (my copy of the King James Version begins with: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.")
And, there are so many descriptions in the Bible (spinning wheels of light, etc) it makes one wonder....maybe they've already seen what we've been looking so hard to find.
The Koran is definitely more accepting to science and, in a sense, is more scientifically accurate, and is open to the idea (but, given nearly 500 years time, one should expect it to be more scientifically sound).
Hinduism flat-out proclaims there is life on other planets (even lists the numbers of species, planets, etc).
Very fascinating to think about!
mdavey said:
There are certainly a good amount of NON-religious people that don't believe in extra-terrestrial life, too.
I'd not worry about what someone doesn't believe. That's almost as bad as religious nuts trying to force you to believe.
MrSmith said:
You're probably right. We'll join together as we're about to be eliminated by people from another world.
Still, for a moment or two, it will be unity.Good that they've found water out there but is it distilled water and can they bottle it and sell it here? Imagine how the price of fancy Earth water will drop once they truly find more imported stuff.
"It's not just good for Saturn, but even for Ur..." Quite a slogan, don't you think?
unixfool said:
In an ideal world, such as announcement of life on other planets shouldn't be withheld because of religous reasons. Religion must adapt.
If such an announcement was made, the religious freaks would just point out their demons ( if intelligent ), or something stupid like that, whilst reading out a passage from the bible.
Unfortunately, religion has way too much influence on the world.