I've ALWAYS found the idea of life on other planets to be very interesting. Imagine creatures that have absolutely nothing in common with life on our planet; no DNA, non-Carbon based, even structurally they'd be tuned to a completely different world. So naturally when NASA presents amazing pictures and an article on possible life on our solar system, the inner nerd in me gets excited.

In recent weeks the Cassini spacecraft has been orbiting one of Saturn's moons, Titan, and periodically taking pictures/collecting data. The reason why Titan is so interesting to researchers is because it is one of the few celestial bodies in our solar system that still has volcanic activity, and not to mention has plenty of ice and assumed liquid water/ammonia under said ice. So during its' routine collection Cassini caught something unusual in its data collection, a possible active volcano spewing hydrocarbons and ice into the atmosphere. Whoo ice and hydrocarbons being shot into the air, so what? Sure it doesn't seem like much, but if you can remember the Miller-Urey experiment where basic compounds were combined to form organic ones, the materials were much the same. Although the volcano itself isn't spewing out ammonia, methane or liquid water(found under the planet's thick ice surface), the ice that is coming from below the crust is where the three compounds mentioned do exist and can mix. This plus the near by heat source implied by the volcano(i.e. geological activity/planet's core)
and you have a mini-Miller experiment underway theoretically forming organic compounds.


Whether we find big green men, or some tiny microbe on a god forsaken rock in the middle of space, I hope that we do find SOMETHING within my lifetime. It'll be nice to know we aren't some unique phenomena and that we're not alone in this universe.

-Conor Stenerson
(Sorry for the late entry, forgot it was GrpC Wk)