It has now been two years, and I am uncertain as to why no one has expressed intrest - well I mean chosen to emphasize - or rather “freaked out” on this particular bit of data that has come back from Enceladus, courtesy of the Cassini mission, circa March 2008. In fact, how the scientific media has not beaten down the door of every news outlet by now is quite beyond me.

Any science fiction instance of life being “detected” is pretty much summed up by the image above.

You see, most of the materials detected when Cassini flew through one of those plumes of water, are indicative of metabolization. Most of the things on the left, produce the things on the right, through respiration, whether it is simple, and producing gasses, or complex, building molecules or even - get this - Life.

Aside from plunking down a microscope, this is the closest we’re going to get for a while. Mr. Spock would not have any problem with this sensor reading, and I am surprised that no one has spelled it out as simply.

>> Image credit: NASA and the Cassini Ion and Mass Spectrometer

>> More Enceladus info at Wikipedia
>> Cassini Mission Home Page

Also see: The Potential for Fungal Life in the Asteroid Belt

Well this Hubble imaging of Ceres is incredible news. Most asteroids have always conjured imagery of Thistledown for me, being the hollowed-out asteroid/spaceship from Greg Bear’s Eon. This image however, is more likely to conjure thoughts of baobabs.

Although the article is intriguing and makes for some sort of Treasure Island type musings late at night, I find personally that the theory of Panspermia and theories of exogenesis in general are highly academic; imho the origin of life anywhere is exactly where it originated.

Panspermia presupposes that life is somehow difficult to evolve. This despite the fact that amino acids, PAHs, water in some form, respirable chemistry (whether CO2, methane, salts/perchlorate, acids) are pretty much everywhere we look.

I think we will find - especially with The Dawn Mission - that life is not the exception, but the default state of anywhere significant resources can be leveraged in a location with energy and chemistry to warrant it. The ingredients for life will simply be expressed as a chemical/energy gradient that indicates there is an advantage to be had, that life will show up to exploit.

>> Image credit: Hubble ACS
>> More Ceres info at Wikipedia
>>Dawn Mission Home Page

Also see: The Potential for Fungal Life in the Asteroid Belt

Something I push on now and then is the literal interpretation of the 1950’s “Life in Outer Space” Here I’d like to talk about recent findings about (dark, dusty) fungus, and correlate them to the specific albedos (measurment of shiny or dull) of asteroids.

Certain asteroids are very dark and dusty. Certain fungi that greatly enjoy high levels of radiation are very dark and dusty. Given that the high melanin levels make the fungus even darker, I think we could soon stop saying “soot” and start saying “life”.

>> Ionizing Radiation Changes the Electronic Properties of Melanin and Enhances the Growth of Melanized Fungi

>> Asteroid albedos: graphs of data (from IRAS)

Be sure to note the density of ~3AU that is beneath .2e (!)

I would like to further add: the second graph, starting just over 2 astronomical units, and going to just past 3, could be indicative of preferential advantage gaining activity based on asteroid composition, factors such as pH or specific mineral content. I’m not saying predation, just preferencial activity.

>> Dawn mission homepage at Nasa.gov