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Scientists discover evidence for a habitable region on Saturn’s moon Enceladus

phys.org

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Re: Scientists discover evidence for a habitable region on Saturn’s moon Enceladus

#11

Post by mcv »

Animats wrote: post #6

So there's this big hydrogen vent in a moon of Saturn. Where's the energy coming from to drive that? Too far from the sun. Enceladus is tidally locked to Saturn, so there are no tidal forces. Enceladus has very low orbital eccentricity, a near-circular orbit, so there are very low tidal forces from that. Some phenomenon must provide energy for the hydrogen jet.

How long has it been tidally locked? Maybe the core is still hot. Or maybe other moons pass close enough to exert enough tidal forces to keep it warm.

Re: Scientists discover evidence for a habitable region on Saturn’s moon Enceladus

#12

Post by [deleted] »

mcv wrote: post #10

This article seems written to sound as spectacular as possible while hiding anything that might lead to real understanding. "Habitable" makes it sound like we could move there and live there without too much trouble. That's not true. What has been discovered is that microorganisms might be able to live there, near hydrothermic vents that seem to create free hydrogen, which could support primitive life. That life coul…

[deleted]

Re: Scientists discover evidence for a habitable region on Saturn’s moon Enceladus

#13

Post by scallycat »

Animats wrote: post #6

So there's this big hydrogen vent in a moon of Saturn. Where's the energy coming from to drive that? Too far from the sun. Enceladus is tidally locked to Saturn, so there are no tidal forces. Enceladus has very low orbital eccentricity, a near-circular orbit, so there are very low tidal forces from that. Some phenomenon must provide energy for the hydrogen jet.

Orbital eccentricity gives rise to tidal forces in this case.

Re: Scientists discover evidence for a habitable region on Saturn’s moon Enceladus

#15

Post by wiredfool »

Animats wrote: post #6

So there's this big hydrogen vent in a moon of Saturn. Where's the energy coming from to drive that? Too far from the sun. Enceladus is tidally locked to Saturn, so there are no tidal forces. Enceladus has very low orbital eccentricity, a near-circular orbit, so there are very low tidal forces from that. Some phenomenon must provide energy for the hydrogen jet.

It appears to be tidal: http://www.blastr.com/2017-5-8/no-we-havent-found-signs-life...

(link to bad astronomy, a reasonably good explainer type source)

Re: Scientists discover evidence for a habitable region on Saturn’s moon Enceladus

#16

Post by huhtenberg »

Animats wrote: post #6

So there's this big hydrogen vent in a moon of Saturn. Where's the energy coming from to drive that? Too far from the sun. Enceladus is tidally locked to Saturn, so there are no tidal forces. Enceladus has very low orbital eccentricity, a near-circular orbit, so there are very low tidal forces from that. Some phenomenon must provide energy for the hydrogen jet.

There _are_ tidal forces. It's just that they alone don't explain the amount of heat measured by Cassini.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enceladus#Tidal_heating

Re: Scientists discover evidence for a habitable region on Saturn’s moon Enceladus

#19

Post by timthelion »

ancarda wrote: post #3

I couldn't read this on iOS as I kept being forcibly thrown into the App Store by some advert. If anyone else is having trouble, you can read the article here: https://archive.is/tPvTT

Sounds like a bug in iOS...
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