Thursday, March 09, 2006

Big annoucement by NASA via Drudge

I haven't gotten all the facts yet, but possible water on Saturn's moon Enceladus here.
"As Cassini approached Saturn, we discovered the Saturnian system is filled with oxygen atoms. At the time we had no idea where the oxygen was coming from," said Candy Hansen, Cassini scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena. "Now we know Enceladus is spewing out water molecules, which break down into oxygen and hydrogen."

Scientists still have many questions. Why is Enceladus so active? Are other sites on Enceladus active? Might this activity have been continuous enough over the moon's history for life to have had a chance to take hold in the moon's interior?


Local news station here at News 13 will have the annoucement at 2PM est. I'll include the NASA link when I find it.

False Alarm! It seems Ch. 13 read the press release wrong updated by Drudge and local6 here. Life has not been found, but water has been found. That's what I got out of it.

From the Flame Trench at Florida Todayhere:
There were erroneous reports online and elsewhere throughout the morning today that NASA was going to report finding life on another planet or somewhere else in the solar system. That is not the case.

That said, the finding could have profound implications about life in the solar system.
End quote. Ok, no life just Water.

More about the Cassini-Huygens discovery here at JPL site.

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