Ceres an 'ocean world'

[XenoFish]

Link

The dwarf planet Ceres – long believed to be a barren space rock – is an ocean world with reservoirs of sea water beneath its surface, the results of a major exploration mission showed on Monday.

[Piney]

I was hoping for that. 

[Orphalesion]

Now the really interesting question...might there primitive life in that ocean?

[Piney]

6 minutes ago, Orphalesion said:

Now the really interesting question...might there primitive life in that ocean?

Probably......

[stevewinn]

2 hours ago, Orphalesion said:

Now the really interesting question...might there primitive life in that ocean?

All these icy ocean worlds in our solar system.Yet missions to such places are few and far between or non existent. 

The holy grail was always to find liquid water. And the strong possibility of life existing in such conditions. Yet we go to Mars. Again 'n again. To me if your looking for life you go to one of these icy ocean moons. 

Put Mars on the back burner and get our feet wet in these oceans. And search for life. With missions taking 20 years plus, to get off the drawing board. To launch pad. It could be some time yet. Which is disappointing. 

 

[Orphalesion]

14 minutes ago, stevewinn said:

All these icy ocean worlds in our solar system.Yet missions to such places are few and far between or non existent. 

The holy grail was always to find liquid water. And the strong possibility of life existing in such conditions. Yet we go to Mars. Again 'n again. To me if your looking for life you go to one of these icy ocean moons. 

Put Mars on the back burner and get our feet wet in these oceans. And search for life. With missions taking 20 years plus, to get off the drawing board. To launch pad. It could be some time yet. Which is disappointing. 

 

I know right?
Screw Mars, we know by now that it's a dead world. Let's send probes to Europa and Ceres to see what might exist under the ice there, or to Titan and see whether some sort of life manages to use the liquid methane there as a solvent instead of water..(plus there might be a liquid layer of water under the ice of Titan too...) 

[Waspie_Dwarf]

52 minutes ago, stevewinn said:

All these icy ocean worlds in our solar system.Yet missions to such places are few and far between or non existent. 

The holy grail was always to find liquid water. And the strong possibility of life existing in such conditions. Yet we go to Mars. Again 'n again. To me if your looking for life you go to one of these icy ocean moons. 

Put Mars on the back burner and get our feet wet in these oceans. And search for life. With missions taking 20 years plus, to get off the drawing board. To launch pad. It could be some time yet. Which is disappointing. 

 

Getting to Mars is, relatively, easy and cheap (by space exploration standards).

Getting to the outer solar system is far harder and more expensive. 

And when you get there then what. These liquid oceans are under kilometres of ice. There is virtually no chance of finding life on the surface and so, until the technology exists to send a lander that can drill to the ocean, there is no reasonable chance of finding that life, even if it exists there.

Mars, on the other hand, is now known to.once have had surface conditions that were suitable for life. It may well have emerged there. If life started on Mars there is still a chance that it survives today.

Within the next decade rocks from Mars will be returned to Earth. Mars remains, in the short term, our best hope of discovering extraterrestrial life.

The icy moons of Jupiter, Saturn and beyond have not been mapped to a high enough degree to send landers there yet. They need to be explored from orbit first, otherwise a landing mission is highly likely to fail.

Both NASA and ESA are currently planning missions to do just that. ESA has JUICE, the JUpiter ICy moons Explorer, due for launch in 2022. NASA has the Europa Clipper due for launch in 2024.

These two missions highlight another reason why exploration of these worlds is rare. Using Ariane 6 as a launcher JUICE will take more than 7.5 years to reach Jupiter. Europa Clipper, even using NASA's SLS rocket, will take more than 6 years (if it uses a cheaper, but less powerful launch vehicle, such as the Falcon Heavy it will take longer).

Good science builds on the lessons learnt by previous observations. Since flight time to Mars is around 9 months and a launch window opens every two years it has been possible to send new and improved landers and rovers at most launch windows.

For the icy moons, with flight times of many years, the progress is naturally slower, to quote Montgomery Scott (from Star Trek, for those heathens that don't know), "Ye cannae change the Laws of Physics!" To get back data that can be meaningfully used to improve the next mission takes years, not months.

These missions take so long to plan for the simple reason that space is so big. That's not disappointing, that's awe inspiring. 

Finally it has to be remembered that space exploration is about more than just the search for life. Mars is a target of interest to scientists because lessons learned there, about, for example, geology and meteorology can teach us much about the Earth. Mars is also of interest because it is a world we can send astronauts to and maybe one day have permanent bases there.

Having a less narrow view about the reasons for planetary exploration leads to the conclusion that Mars should remain a main target for the foreseeable future.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

4 hours ago, Piney said:

Probably......

Wrong answer. From a scientific point of view the only correct answer, at the moment, is there is not enough information to give an informed answer. 

The default position of science, until evidence is acquired, is, "we don't know".

[Waspie_Dwarf]

1 hour ago, Orphalesion said:

I know right?
Screw Mars, we know by now that it's a dead world. 

No we don't. 

[Orphalesion]

13 minutes ago, Waspie_Dwarf said:

No we don't. 

I know there could still be something on Mars, some hardy survivors and such. I just have more faith in the sub-ice oceans. 

[Piney]

25 minutes ago, Waspie_Dwarf said:

Wrong answer. From a scientific point of view the only correct answer, at the moment, is there is not enough information to give an informed answer. 

The default position of science, until evidence is acquired, is, "we don't know".

We don't, but considering the chemistry behind life, simple life is probably common on ocean planets around high metallicity stars.  

Life starts in oceans. 

Just don't bring it back here......

[stevewinn]

15 hours ago, Orphalesion said:

I know right?
Screw Mars, we know by now that it's a dead world. Let's send probes to Europa and Ceres to see what might exist under the ice there, or to Titan and see whether some sort of life manages to use the liquid methane there as a solvent instead of water..(plus there might be a liquid layer of water under the ice of Titan too...) 

Exactly. We go to these oceans and get an image as an alien fish swims by.

Imagine that. That would capture the imagination of the public. And space exploration would see a boom. Especially private enterprise.

What do people want to see a fish from one of these oceans or a picture of dead microbes.

 

 

 

[Free99]

It’s out there we will find it one day or it will find us. I have no doubts. If you look at how big the universe is there is no way we are all that’s in it. But I seriously doubt our neighbors are anywhere close. This is the needle in a haystack mode for us. Between probes and scanning the universe with all of our technology we will find it. The real question is when it’s found will we even be told? Imagine how this is going to be taken with most religions on our planet. Suppressed? Who knows we are after all only human.