Cassini 'Tastes' Organic Material at Enceladus 70
Riding with Robots writes "As previously reported, the robotic spacecraft Cassini recently flew through the mysterious geyser plumes at Saturn's icy moon Enceladus. Today, NASA released the preliminary results of the flyby, including some intriguing findings, such as organic materials 20 times denser than expected and relatively high temperatures along the fissures where the geysers emanate. 'These spectacular new data will really help us understand what powers the geysers. The surprisingly high temperatures make it more likely that there's liquid water not far below the surface,' said one mission scientist."
Re:Organic? (Score:4, Interesting)
What interests me... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm wondering if that, in fact, happened - that there was one almighty pulverization and the modern Enceladus is the result of the lighter material condensing around a surviving fragment of sufficient size to act as a nucleus. In that case, though, there should be another moon formed from the heavier material condensing around another fragment, showing an abnormally high density, in much the same way that the Earth and its moon unevenly divide the material of the original planet.
So far, I've not seen anything that suggests that is the case, but since so little is actually known, I guess it's well within the realms of possible at this point.
Lets play god (Score:4, Interesting)