One of the (few) panels I actually managed to drag myself to at Dragon*Con was a panel on the Cassini space probe currently poking around Saturn. The panel was hosted by Trina Ray, who works as Science System Engineer for the Cassini program at NASA–which is a pretty damn cool job to have, if you ask me.
In all fairness, it wasn’t the panel I had wanted to see. The panel I’d intended to see, whose name I don’t even remember now, was full; the Cassini panel was next door, and relatively empty, and my feet hurt. So in we went.
It turned out to be one of the best panels of the con.
The Cassini mission was originally intended to explore Saturn and one of its moons, Titan. Along the way, it’s discovered some strange and interesting things, particularly with regards to another of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus.
Now, Enceladus doesn’t really seem, at first glance, like a terribly interesting body. It’s basically a ball of ice about the size of Arizona; cold, distant, orbiting around Saturn like…well, like a big lump of frozen water.
Ah, but the universe is a vast and surprising place, full of weirdnesses too countless to apprehend.
Cassini has, among other things, instruments capable of analyzing and determining the chemical makeup of the matter around it. When it comes to pass that those instruments, while the ship is passing near a giant ball of ice, suddenly register a great deal of water, and then just as suddenly register bupkis, one parsimonious explanation is that the instruments are on the fritz. Another explanation is that there’s a massive honking big jet of water spewing for hundreds of miles out of the big lump of frozen water, but that doesn’t make any sense, does it? Big, cold lumps of frozen water aren’t usually in the habit of spewing out gigantic jets of liquid water, much to the relief of folks who own freezers everywhere.
Now, if there is a big jet of water spewing out of a ball of ice, it’s the sort of thing you’d expect to be able to see, particularly if you arrange to look for it when it’s backlit by the sun. Some rejiggering of orbital mechanics and other rocket-science stuff later, the Cassini was able to take a picture in just that sort of situation, and here’s what it saw:
Lookit that! A big honking jet of water.
Now, this isn’t the sort of thing you’d expect if you were talking about a ball of ice orbiting a distant gas giant. Enceladus is cold. It’s bright white, so it reflects most of what little sun is available from so far away. In fact, it’s actually, for the most part, the coldest object in orbit around Saturn, with surface temperatures near the equator of around -315 degrees Fahrenheit.
And yet, it’s spewing out jets of liquid water. Which is weird. It’s also hot at the poles. Which is weirder. And the heat is concentrated in weird stripes at the south pole, which is weirder still:
So what we’ve got here, basically, is a ball of ice that’s not really a ball of ice at all. It’s being heated by some internal process, it’s spewing out jets of water through fissures in the icy surface, these jets of water have all migrated (or possibly rotated the entire moon) so they’re exactly at the south pole, and…
Oh, wait, I forgot to mention something. It’s not just water. It’s also got organic molecules of various sorts in it.
What we’re left with, then, is a moon that’s got a crust of frozen water with a liquid core of molten water, in much the same way that the earth has a crust of solid rock with a liquid core of molten rock. The water within the moon spews out in huge plumes via a process called “cryovolcanism”–and how cool is that word, by the way? Cryovolcanism. The moon’s south pole is covered with cryovolcanoes.
And they spew out a lot of water. In fact, it looks like the largest ring around Saturn, the E-ring, is created by Enceladus. The ring is a vast structure of little tiny ice crystals, which come from these cryovolcanos on the moon’s surface.
Now, let’s sit back and think about this for a bit.
We have heat. We have liquid water. We have organic molecules. We have, in Ms. Ray’s words, a compelling reason not to ditch the Cassini, when it reaches the end of its life, on Enceladus.
Because, you see, those are the basic ingredients necessary for life–heat, water, organic molecules.
Now, if you look at most conventional science fiction, you see that a great deal of it is concerned with life in outer space–something which has never been demonstrated, but which nevertheless seems rather likely. And much of the bulk of this kind of science fiction concerns itself with life as it might exist in places that are like earth.
Which shows, I think, a failure of imagination.
The human imagination, as I’ve often said, is surprisingly feeble. When given a stunningly vast universe filled with all manner of weirdness, we set our imaginary stories in places that look like Wyoming. When confronted with the breathtaking diversity of biology just here on earth, the best we can come up with is imaginary creatures like Bigfoot–half man, half ape, all lame. When we ask ourselves how such a marvelous, beautiful place as the universe could come to be, the best we come up with is a bearded old guy who created the earth (whose surface is seventy-five percent water) exclusively for man (who has no gills), and since that epochal moment of creation has largely confined himself to a near obsession with women’s clothing and the occasional vaguely Mary-shaped swirl in somebody’s French toast.
I came away from the panel impressed all over again with the majesty and incredible, mind-boggling wonder and beauty of the physical universe. This stuff is so incredible, so fantastical, so amazingly bizarre and splendid that it’s hard to understand how anyone, confronted with this, could not be awed by the complexity and surprises the universe has to offer.
After it was over, Shelly turned to me and said “How come more people know about Britney Spears’ sister than know about this?” And you know, I don’t have an answer.
Well, if the Enceladus cryo-wyrms had cool PR folk making hollywood movies &/or video games about them (let alone a Charleston Heston movie), we’d be all over that as a culture. It’s not like the public has much of a choice in the public discourse.
Anyhow, thanks for the post. My world is more interesting and wondrous today than yesterday.
Well, if the Enceladus cryo-wyrms had cool PR folk making hollywood movies &/or video games about them (let alone a Charleston Heston movie), we’d be all over that as a culture. It’s not like the public has much of a choice in the public discourse.
Anyhow, thanks for the post. My world is more interesting and wondrous today than yesterday.
Good post; goose bump inducing.
Good post; goose bump inducing.
Here’s the short, flippant answer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV5UTHRx0a4
Bwah! That’s awesome. I like that guy, whoever he is.
Here’s the short, flippant answer.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV5UTHRx0a4
If I told you how many times I’ve discovered that otherwise intelligent and curious friends of mine were unaware of the difference between a star and a planet, you would not believe me. Especially if you had occasion to meet them yourself.
Wow. I’m…um, I don’t know quite how to respond to that. Shocked, I guess.
I think it’s got to do with critical focus log scalings. ;}P>
Shocked me too, when I first started finding that not everyone paid attention to the cosmology lessons in Primary School Science.
These days, not so much.
On the plus side, it takes determined effort and months of stalking to find Flat-Earthers in the wild these days.
On the plus side, it takes determined effort and months of stalking to find Flat-Earthers in the wild these days.
Naah. Just look on the Fundies Say the Darndest Things! Web site.
Nah, I said in the wild, not domesticated. ;}P>
If I told you how many times I’ve discovered that otherwise intelligent and curious friends of mine were unaware of the difference between a star and a planet, you would not believe me. Especially if you had occasion to meet them yourself.
Boy, when you finally do go to a panel, you do it justice! This was great fun to read. Thank you for taking the time to write it for us. We geeks, we geeks of the planets and the stars…
Boy, when you finally do go to a panel, you do it justice! This was great fun to read. Thank you for taking the time to write it for us. We geeks, we geeks of the planets and the stars…
I would ask you to marry me if I wasn’t already. 😀 This was just a very inspiring post. – and people don’t take the time to enjoy the universe and the beauty of our world the way they should.
I would ask you to marry me if I wasn’t already. 😀 This was just a very inspiring post. – and people don’t take the time to enjoy the universe and the beauty of our world the way they should.
Wow..
Thanks for sharing this. I am so glad I bumped into you on OKCupid, your journal is an awesome read.
Wow..
Thanks for sharing this. I am so glad I bumped into you on OKCupid, your journal is an awesome read.
By what measure is the Earth 75% water? The most abundant element composing the earth is iron, about 1/3 of the total mass. Oxygen is indeed close behind iron, but the bulk of it is bound up as mineral oxides, particularly SiO2. Water is a pretty small fraction of the Earth’s bulk…
(This should not be construed to disdain a post that is quite moving and inspirational; I was just curious what you meant.)
True. The surface of the earth, however, is about 75% water by area, a fact rather inconvenient to those with no gills.
By what measure is the Earth 75% water? The most abundant element composing the earth is iron, about 1/3 of the total mass. Oxygen is indeed close behind iron, but the bulk of it is bound up as mineral oxides, particularly SiO2. Water is a pretty small fraction of the Earth’s bulk…
(This should not be construed to disdain a post that is quite moving and inspirational; I was just curious what you meant.)
True. The surface of the earth, however, is about 75% water by area, a fact rather inconvenient to those with no gills.
Well, at least one more person has balanced out the snippets of Brittney Spears news with news of this!
Well, at least one more person has balanced out the snippets of Brittney Spears news with news of this!
Fantastic coverage, as always.
I certainly hope to meet you guys in person one of these days. 😉
I think that’d rock! 🙂
What conferences are you guys planning to travel to this year?
We’ll be at BECAUSE in MN (bisexuality) and Texas Poly Big Fun for sure. But, we might consider an additional one or two. 😉
No more travel plans for me for the rest of this year. I’ll be at Florida Poly Retreat next March, but I don’t have any plans at the moment other than that.
Oh, sorry, I was meaning “year” in a less Gregorian calendar way. Like, where might you guys travel to in the next twelve or so months. 😉
BECAUSE will be in April. Texas Poly Big Fun is at the end of March.
End of March? Bad timing; Florida Poly Retreat sounds like it takes place at the same time.
I was invited to the poly thing going on in New York this weekend, but they invited me a scant 8 days before the event, so I wasn’t able to make it happen.
Fantastic coverage, as always.
I certainly hope to meet you guys in person one of these days. 😉
That is really, REALLY cool. I have no words for how utterly awesome that is.
Yeah! 🙂
That is really, REALLY cool. I have no words for how utterly awesome that is.
saturn’s rings were created by this moon? that’s freaking cool!
I like that bottom picture… but that’s not a real picture, is it? More like an artist’s depiction of what it would look like on the surface of that moon?
The bottom picture is indeed an artist’s impression of the surface of the moon, not a photograph. I must say it’s a view I’d like to see myself one day, though!
saturn’s rings were created by this moon? that’s freaking cool!
I like that bottom picture… but that’s not a real picture, is it? More like an artist’s depiction of what it would look like on the surface of that moon?
Brittany’s sister
I don’t know why the general public is more interested in Hollywood and not more interested in space exploration.
Being the final frontier I would like to be involved, in fact I would go to mars, even if it were a one way ticket, Saturn has always interested me also
Neo
Brittany’s sister
I don’t know why the general public is more interested in Hollywood and not more interested in space exploration.
Being the final frontier I would like to be involved, in fact I would go to mars, even if it were a one way ticket, Saturn has always interested me also
Neo
We almost went there.
Enceladus was regarded as a good target for the Orion spacecraft, before test ban treaties and cancer fears put a stop to the Orion project.
Orion, for those who don’t know, was a SSTO design propelled by atomic bombs. It’s nowhere near as absurd as it sounds, and still the best mass/thrust ratio of any spacecraft.
Re: We almost went there.
Orion was a really neat idea. The Ares/Orion that NASA’s developing right now is a lot less versatile, and a lot less interesting.
We almost went there.
Enceladus was regarded as a good target for the Orion spacecraft, before test ban treaties and cancer fears put a stop to the Orion project.
Orion, for those who don’t know, was a SSTO design propelled by atomic bombs. It’s nowhere near as absurd as it sounds, and still the best mass/thrust ratio of any spacecraft.
but there’s a theory
piers anthony wrote that big series of evolution novels – isle of man? isle of woman? something like that – and explored a theory that people did used to be more watery – like women have fat in our hips to make us floaty so we can nurse babies in rivers. or something. it’s been 20 or 25 years since i read it.
Re: but there’s a theory
I remember reading a serious biology text quite some while back that suggested that humans branched off from other primates in part because we became more adapted to water, for the same reasons you mention. I think that’s a really interesting idea.
Re: but there’s a theory
yes, me too – and also that his series was based on “possible” (even if not “probable”) evolutionary biology, but with characters and sex.
but there’s a theory
piers anthony wrote that big series of evolution novels – isle of man? isle of woman? something like that – and explored a theory that people did used to be more watery – like women have fat in our hips to make us floaty so we can nurse babies in rivers. or something. it’s been 20 or 25 years since i read it.
The bottom picture is indeed an artist’s impression of the surface of the moon, not a photograph. I must say it’s a view I’d like to see myself one day, though!
I think that’d rock! 🙂
Wow. I’m…um, I don’t know quite how to respond to that. Shocked, I guess.
What conferences are you guys planning to travel to this year?
We’ll be at BECAUSE in MN (bisexuality) and Texas Poly Big Fun for sure. But, we might consider an additional one or two. 😉
No more travel plans for me for the rest of this year. I’ll be at Florida Poly Retreat next March, but I don’t have any plans at the moment other than that.
Oh, sorry, I was meaning “year” in a less Gregorian calendar way. Like, where might you guys travel to in the next twelve or so months. 😉
BECAUSE will be in April. Texas Poly Big Fun is at the end of March.
I think it’s got to do with critical focus log scalings. ;}P>
Shocked me too, when I first started finding that not everyone paid attention to the cosmology lessons in Primary School Science.
These days, not so much.
On the plus side, it takes determined effort and months of stalking to find Flat-Earthers in the wild these days.
On the plus side, it takes determined effort and months of stalking to find Flat-Earthers in the wild these days.
Naah. Just look on the Fundies Say the Darndest Things! Web site.
Nah, I said in the wild, not domesticated. ;}P>
Well, ya know…
the universe is not only as strange, weird, wonderful, and beautiful as we can imagine, it is stranger, weirder, more wonderful and oh so much more beautiful than we can possibly imagine.
Boyd,
You know, that annoying guy from the polyfamilies list. LOL
Re: Well, ya know…
One of the things that frustrates me greatly about religious systems, in fact, is that they often seem to understate, by many orders of magnitude, the weirdness and beauty of the physical universe, and by extension the weirdness and beauty of any purported creator divinity.
Re: Well, ya know…
And not only that, they constantly ask you to do this, follow that, abstain from A, B, C, and lots of other fun sex stuff. But when you ask “why”, and then question their “because we said so, that’s why”, they act like you are the biggest pervert in the world. And they act offended when you ask for proof. I am sorry, but if you want certain things from me, ‘ya gotta show me the da proof’ knowwhatimean?
BWS
Well, ya know…
the universe is not only as strange, weird, wonderful, and beautiful as we can imagine, it is stranger, weirder, more wonderful and oh so much more beautiful than we can possibly imagine.
Boyd,
You know, that annoying guy from the polyfamilies list. LOL
Re: Well, ya know…
One of the things that frustrates me greatly about religious systems, in fact, is that they often seem to understate, by many orders of magnitude, the weirdness and beauty of the physical universe, and by extension the weirdness and beauty of any purported creator divinity.
Re: but there’s a theory
I remember reading a serious biology text quite some while back that suggested that humans branched off from other primates in part because we became more adapted to water, for the same reasons you mention. I think that’s a really interesting idea.
Re: We almost went there.
Orion was a really neat idea. The Ares/Orion that NASA’s developing right now is a lot less versatile, and a lot less interesting.
Yeah! 🙂
End of March? Bad timing; Florida Poly Retreat sounds like it takes place at the same time.
I was invited to the poly thing going on in New York this weekend, but they invited me a scant 8 days before the event, so I wasn’t able to make it happen.
Bwah! That’s awesome. I like that guy, whoever he is.
Re: but there’s a theory
yes, me too – and also that his series was based on “possible” (even if not “probable”) evolutionary biology, but with characters and sex.
Re: Well, ya know…
And not only that, they constantly ask you to do this, follow that, abstain from A, B, C, and lots of other fun sex stuff. But when you ask “why”, and then question their “because we said so, that’s why”, they act like you are the biggest pervert in the world. And they act offended when you ask for proof. I am sorry, but if you want certain things from me, ‘ya gotta show me the da proof’ knowwhatimean?
BWS
I had just added you to my Friends list, after seeing your Map of Sexuality, ROFLMAO. Isn’t it interesting how often I am intrigued by the blog of a deviant (in every positive sense of the word, of course), being that I’m poly myself! And even more interesting is how often those blogs are in line with other interests of mine! I write SF and have copied this entry for my R&D files; hope you don’t mind.
Kitty
Welcome aboard!
I had just added you to my Friends list, after seeing your Map of Sexuality, ROFLMAO. Isn’t it interesting how often I am intrigued by the blog of a deviant (in every positive sense of the word, of course), being that I’m poly myself! And even more interesting is how often those blogs are in line with other interests of mine! I write SF and have copied this entry for my R&D files; hope you don’t mind.
Kitty
Welcome aboard!