Life but not as we know it.

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TheBlindWatchmaker's picture
Life but not as we know it.

A recent article in New Scientist reports that there may be alien microbes on Enceladus.

The article details how microbes that produce methane may already be living on Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons.
It goes on to say how testing at the university of Vienna found that the conditions used in their lab are as close as possible to those inferred from Cassini on Enceladus.

Giving that Cassini detected traces of Methane on Enceladus, It can be asserted that a microbe such as ones like Methanothermococcus okinawensis found on Earth, could give a chance that some of what is found on the moon may have come from this kind of microbe.

Here is a link to the article.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2162288-we-may-have-already-found-s...

What are your thoughts? Do you think there is a strong of discovering some simple form of life within our solar system?
And if found to be true, What would this mean for a theistic world view?

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mickron88's picture
interesting...

interesting...

kinda blow my mind...
never thought of this, thanks..

Old man shouts at clouds's picture
All the churches have teams

All the churches have teams of apologists working on it...after all the income stream is much more important than truth. Islam will point out is is already in the Qu'ran somewhere. Itonly reall affects the Abrahamic religions I don't think the others will give a shit, for the Scientologists it is a vindication of sorts.

Cognostic's picture
I love reading about

I love reading about extremophiles.
Pyrolobus fumarii, Pyrococcus furiosus: Live in volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean where sunlight does not reach. They live in a small area between the molten rock of the volcano and the dark frozen depths of the ocean.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4187170/

You read this stuff and it appears nearly certain we are going to find life out there in the universe, It just seems to be a matter of when.

My favorite extremophile is life inside a nuclear reactor. Amazing.

https://unitedcats.wordpress.com/2007/05/29/major-biological-discoveryin...

Grinseed's picture
I remember reading about

I remember reading about anaerobic bacteria being found in extremely toxic tailings dams in disused factories years ago. Seems like the miracle of life ain't so miraculous aferall, but rather downright irrepressible.

*edited for dramatic effect

Randomhero1982's picture
I would have thought it to be

I would have thought it to be inevitable really.

But an excellent read anyways!

LogicFTW's picture
At this point I would be

At this point I would be extremely surprised if we did not find life in our solar system outside of earth.

Hell earth could of even seeded life on other planets/moons in our solar system or vica versa. Via large meteor impacts that impacts with enough violence to send small chunks of earth full of super hardy life into the outer atmosphere, where it can hibernate until it hitches a ride with a passing comet, and eventually make it to another large celestial body that has enough ingredients for the super hardy life to pull out of hibernation. Add a few billion years of evolution and voila.

Sky Pilot's picture
Imagine finding oil on

Imagine finding oil on distant planets and moons. People will go nuts wondering where the dinosaurs went.

TheBlindWatchmaker's picture
A follow up article for those

A follow up article for those interested in Scientific American,

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/enceladus-could-be-teeming-wi...

California Girl's picture
As Jodie Foster said in

As Jodie Foster said in Contact, "The universe is a pretty big place. It's bigger than anything anyone has ever dreamed of before. So if it's just us... seems like an awful waste of space."

Agree with the others that if life is found, all religions will come up with some cockamamie story about their god to explain it.

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