Comments on: Underground ocean on Titan, alien life on Phobos?

By: trakk

trakk — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 16:36:24 +0000

@ken,interesting idea.

Maybe god did the same with life on earth millions of years ago.

By: Pete Fowler

Pete Fowler — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 04:47:15 +0000

A few microbes is a weak reason for making a planet out of bounds. Anything less than intelligent life means we should take care not to eradicate or contaminate it, but only native life at least as intelligent as, say, our primates, is a good reason for an anti-colonialism policy.

By: egore

egore — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 18:45:52 +0000

It is possible to see that NASA may not want people to know there is life on other planets and moons, simply because to find life in these areas would mean We as a species do not have a moral or legal right to explore or colonize these areas. We most certainly would hamper any alien form of life if we were to explore in these areas. I would hope I am wrong in this situation.

By: GatorALLin

GatorALLin — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 20:49:01 +0000

My gut says that life on other planets is a lot more rare than we first thought… I hope they do find life on Mars, but doubt they will… same goes for Titan… hope I am wrong…. Can they hurry up with the rover on Mars and let us know if there was ever life there…..??

By: Gorden Russell

Gorden Russell — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 19:52:38 +0000

With all the tidal tugging of Saturn, there has just got to be some warm thermal vents at the bottom of the Titan sea. It just can’t be water all the way through.

By: Ken

Ken — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 16:29:42 +0000

We should colonize these planets and moons. If no life are found, it would be great to seed these worlds with synthetic lifeforms of our design.

By: egore

egore — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 14:44:35 +0000

Why do I have this sinking feeling that whatever we find on Mars , Titan, Phobos, we will not be told about it if it includes anything pointing to life on these areas? I sincerely hope I am wrong .

By: silentrage

silentrage — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 13:09:55 +0000

We did, in the 70s, but it was dismissed by hardnose skeptics as impossible.

By: Lord Penguin

Lord Penguin — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 12:40:30 +0000

Looking at the chemistry of Titan, you can see why it’s considered a good candidate for alien life. Although landing on the moon is required to completely understand it, the information we have reveals that many diverse chemicals, even ones considered organic, are present on Titan. The bodies of water could have even more volume than the oceans on Earth, considering the sub-surface ones.

The chemicals on Titan have had much longer to form life than than the time it took for Earth to produce its own life.

Mars having life makes sense, because even if it didn’t evolve there it could have come from Earth. However, considering that once bacteria evolved on Earth they covered the planet (and still do today), if there was once life on mars we should have found it already.