Mini Good News | November 09, 2009 | 10 comments

Extraterrestrial rafting: Hunting off-world sea life

source: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427331.000-extraterrestrial-rafting-hunting-offworld...

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retro_Syl
IF LIFE is to be found beyond our home planet, then our closest encounters with it may come in the dark abyss of some extraterrestrial sea. For Earth is certainly not the only ocean-girdled world in our solar system. As many as five moons of Jupiter and Saturn are now thought to hide seas beneath their icy crusts.

To find out more about these worlds and their hidden oceans, two ambitious voyages are now taking shape. About a decade from now, if all goes to plan, the first mission will send a pair of probes to explore Jupiter's satellites. They will concentrate on giant Ganymede and pale Europa, gauging the depths of the oceans that almost certainly lie within them.

A few years later, an even more audacious mission will head towards Saturn to sniff the polar sea spray of its snow-white moon Enceladus. It will also visit Titan, which has perhaps the most astonishing extraterrestrial landscape in our solar system. To explore this giant moon, the spacecraft will send out two seemingly antique contraptions: a hot-air balloon to fly over the deserts and mountains, and a boat that will float on a sea of liquid hydrocarbons...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427331.000-extraterrestrial-rafting-hunt...
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10 comments // Extraterrestrial rafting: Hunting off-world sea life

  • Revelation_Machine
  • Toughth
    • 0
      Toughth  

    • We act like life in other parts of the universe would be fair and compassionat just for the mere reason they are suposedly more civilized. For inteligence to start you have to have a fairly harsh envirnment to overcome. Make no mistake anouther life form that is smarter than we are wil also be more aggressive and probably a lot creuler.

    • 2 years ago
  • Revelation_Machine
  • Manish_Bunty
    • 0
      Manish_Bunty  
    • Image

    • What 's the science say about it .we all know how it is critical .
      there may many way of it.
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    • 2 years ago
  • schellingjr
  • S3th
    • 0
      S3th  

    • Our barbaric asses had better think twice before looking for life on other worlds. We don't have such a great record at cherishing life....We tend to destroy it more often then not. Our luck, we'll kill something off world, that has the ability to fight the f@ck back!

    • 2 years ago
  • FishaHouse777
    • 0
      FishaHouse777  

    • Life can flourish in even some of the toughest conditions known to exist, but intelligent life needs certain conditions. I'm certain we will find life on some of these extraterrestrial satellites but it will be a long time until we find intelligent beings.

    • 2 years ago
  • SleepDirt
    • 0
      SleepDirt  
    • FishaHouse777:

      "Life can flourish in even some of the toughest conditions known to exist, but intelligent life needs certain conditions."

      Indeed.Like inside icebergs and around geothermal vents. the harshest conditions on earth.

      "I'm certain we will find life on some of these extraterrestrial satellites but it will be a long time until we find intelligent beings."

      Perhaps, unless they find us first.

    • 2 years ago
  • FishaHouse777
  • CalPal
    • 0
      CalPal  
    • FishaHouse777:

      "Surprise!" *pew pew pew, end of humanity*,

      or

      "Surprise!" *gives advanced technology to humans to allow them to travel across the galaxy*?

      I prefer choice #2, but you never know what surprise you'll get...

    • 2 years ago
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