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Planet Ceres is an 'ocean world' with sea water beneath surface, mission finds

theguardian.com

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Re: Planet Ceres is an 'ocean world' with sea water beneath surface, mission finds

#141

Post by hyperpallium2 »

eru wrote: post #122
walrus01 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without a significant drop in the $ per kg cost of putting stuff in low earth orbit, I wouldn't take that bet. I don't think SpaceX starship will be revolutionary enough to put probes in LEO cheap enough. Once in orbit it's possible to reach things in the asteroid belt entirely through very high efficiency ion/hall effect thruster propulsion, which can have specific impulse as high as 8000. Any probe capable of drill…

What odds would make you take the bet? And, perhaps let's talk about a conditional bet that removes the difficulty of space exploration: The bet pays me X dollars, if human vessels can go to the asteroid belt and not find life. It pays you Y dollars, if we find life. And no payment in either direction, if we can't go to the asteroid belt and don't find life. Say, all limited to the next 100 years. What's the ratio of…

(not OP) Another clarification: before you said "non-earth life". Panspermia[1] implies Ceres and Earth life are related, so that native Ceres life is hard to distinguish from Earth's (and arguably is the same as Earth life).

1. Backtrapolating exponential evolution finds an origin older than Earth. https://arxiv.org/abs/1304.3381

Re: Planet Ceres is an 'ocean world' with sea water beneath surface, mission finds

#142

Post by eru »

hyperpallium2 wrote: post #141
eru wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What odds would make you take the bet? And, perhaps let's talk about a conditional bet that removes the difficulty of space exploration: The bet pays me X dollars, if human vessels can go to the asteroid belt and not find life. It pays you Y dollars, if we find life. And no payment in either direction, if we can't go to the asteroid belt and don't find life. Say, all limited to the next 100 years. What's the ratio of…

(not OP) Another clarification: before you said "non-earth life". Panspermia[1] implies Ceres and Earth life are related, so that native Ceres life is hard to distinguish from Earth's (and arguably is the same as Earth life). 1. Backtrapolating exponential evolution finds an origin older than Earth. https://arxiv.org/abs/1304.3381

To be more precise: what I meant is life on Ceres that hasn't come accidentally from any of our own probes since eg the start of the 20th century.

I'd be happy to pay up in case of pre-historic panspermia.

Re: Planet Ceres is an 'ocean world' with sea water beneath surface, mission finds

#144

Post by bryanrasmussen »

fsloth wrote: post #135
Razengan wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Life" could also be AI machines. If we seeded a planet with sufficiently advanced robots, that can mine and build and learn and make copies of themselves on their own, and a few centuries later they have a civilization, does it matter what they're made of? For all intents and purposes, it would be life. Perhaps at some point we should/will have to stop saying "life" at some point and use terms like "agent" instead,…

I don't think you should confuse life and agency. I fail to see how a bacteria would have any agency.

Well then if you found a place with bacteria but nothing advanced you would put in your captain's log that "the fundamental requirements for agency to arise were found, but as yet agency had not been achieved" or some such phrasing.

Re: Planet Ceres is an 'ocean world' with sea water beneath surface, mission finds

#145

Post by raverbashing »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #96
throwaway2048 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another problem with silicon is that its basic oxide (Silicon Dioxide) is a solid that is non-reactive with virtually everything. If you assume water based life, there is almost certainly going to be oxides involved, such as how CO2 is involved with earth life. And I think water based life chemistry is an extremely good bet, because alternative liquids based off of light, common elements are either only liquid at ver…

> Another problem with silicon is that its basic oxide (Silicon Dioxide) is a solid that is non-reactive with virtually everything. I was amused once by reading an MSDS for silicon dioxide. As I presume is required, they do list some hazards of exposure, but if you read the sheets for other substances the contrast is pretty striking. Look at the health effects listed on https://fscimage.fishersci.com/msds/09890.htm :…

SiO2's "toxicity" is more mechanical than chemical (it's coarse and rough, etc)

But it's pretty much inert chemically (for human levels of chemical reactions)

Re: Planet Ceres is an 'ocean world' with sea water beneath surface, mission finds

#146

Post by Auracle »

walrus01 wrote: post #118
eru wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would still be surprised in the sense that I would gladly give you 100 to 1 odds that we won't find non-earth life on Ceres in the next hundred years. What are your odds?

Without a significant drop in the $ per kg cost of putting stuff in low earth orbit, I wouldn't take that bet. I don't think SpaceX starship will be revolutionary enough to put probes in LEO cheap enough. Once in orbit it's possible to reach things in the asteroid belt entirely through very high efficiency ion/hall effect thruster propulsion, which can have specific impulse as high as 8000. Any probe capable of drill…

Wouldn’t a nuke work?

Re: Planet Ceres is an 'ocean world' with sea water beneath surface, mission finds

#147

Post by MPSimmons »

QuadrupleA wrote: post #114
gaukes wrote: post #2

Ceres is one of the more interesting candidates for life in our solar system. Ceres is in the habitable zone for our solar system (although just barely), it's surface temperature is -30 F (eq. to winter in Greenland), and it's detected that the water on the surface is 20% carbon by mass (though that can mean a lot of things).

Hmm... according to wikipedia Ceres' surface is 110 - 155 Kelvin, or a toasty -262 to -181°F. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet) Which makes sense, with little to no atmosphere. If that's correct I'm a little surprised this got voted up to top comment.

The comment you replied to almost definitely relied on the data in the "Geology of Ceres" wikipedia entry[1]. This is from 1991, and was strictly an estimate.

The Dawn probe in 2017[2] got a better measurement, of 110K-155K.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_Ceres 2 - https://sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/ssbsite/docume...

Re: Planet Ceres is an 'ocean world' with sea water beneath surface, mission finds

#148

Post by overflow_error »

ceejayoz wrote: post #4
colordrops wrote: post #3

It's not a planet is it? If Pluto is not a planet, Ceres certainly is not either.

The first paragraph uses the term “dwarf planet”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_planet

yeah but dwarf planet is not a planet, this is like saying method is a function, outrageous

Re: Planet Ceres is an 'ocean world' with sea water beneath surface, mission finds

#149

Post by ajuc »

fsloth wrote: post #135
Razengan wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Life" could also be AI machines. If we seeded a planet with sufficiently advanced robots, that can mine and build and learn and make copies of themselves on their own, and a few centuries later they have a civilization, does it matter what they're made of? For all intents and purposes, it would be life. Perhaps at some point we should/will have to stop saying "life" at some point and use terms like "agent" instead,…

I don't think you should confuse life and agency. I fail to see how a bacteria would have any agency.

> I fail to see how a bacteria would have any agency.

It does stuff on its own. That's agency.

Re: Planet Ceres is an 'ocean world' with sea water beneath surface, mission finds

#150

Post by xxs »

QuadrupleA wrote: post #114
gaukes wrote: post #2

Ceres is one of the more interesting candidates for life in our solar system. Ceres is in the habitable zone for our solar system (although just barely), it's surface temperature is -30 F (eq. to winter in Greenland), and it's detected that the water on the surface is 20% carbon by mass (though that can mean a lot of things).

Hmm... according to wikipedia Ceres' surface is 110 - 155 Kelvin, or a toasty -262 to -181°F. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet) Which makes sense, with little to no atmosphere. If that's correct I'm a little surprised this got voted up to top comment.

I read that -30F, converted to C (5/9 of -62, like -35) and ughh, no way. That "planet" is too far away.
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