While the prospects for the possibility of intelligent alien life in the universe at
large seem to be dropping in the literature as of late, I'll be covering a paper soon
that doesn't simply provide a solution to the Fermi paradox, but instead dissolves it
completely, the prospects for simple alien life within our solar system have done nothing
but rise.
This has particularly been the case for Mars, recent work very much supports the possibility
that some form of microbial life could have existed, or may yet exist on that world.
But there are also the ice shell moons such as Europa where active life may exist in its
oceans.
Whether it in fact does exist, and how complex it might be remains to be seen.
And, what we find at Europa will answer an extremely important question.
Say we find life there.
If we find very simple prokaryotic organisms, and say they arose billions of years ago,
then that might support the idea that the move from prokaryotic to eukaryotic life is
the great filter that might make intelligent life in the universe extremely rare.
Conversely if we drilled into Europa and found more than that, say we found jellyfish like
creatures, or some analogue of tube worms hanging around thermal vents, and all of it
is absolutely unrelated to life on earth, then we know that complexity of life in the
universe would probably not be rare and in that case, intelligence also may not be rare.
Of course, at the rate we're exploring Europa, SETI may well find a radio signal that preemptively
answers that question for us.
But Europa is only the strongest possibility for aquatic life.
There are many other places in the solar system where liquid water seems possible.
This list grows, and with the exploration of Pluto revealing that it probably has a
liquid water ocean under its surface, that opens up the possibility that other objects
like Pluto in the Kuiper Belt may also have oceans, conceivably allowing for scores of
possible places where life might existing within our own solar system.
But another strong candidate on the list, Saturn's moon Enceladus, has given us yet
another clue that it has all of the ingredients needed for life to arise there.
Enceladus has an interesting feature.
Instead of being locked up completely under the ice, cracks in the ice allow water from
the ocean below to spew into space which makes for convenient study of what might be in the
ocean below.
In a study done by researchers at Heidelberg University, link below, they detail the detection
of complex organic molecules in Enceladus' plumes by the now destroyed Cassini spacecraft.
And it wasn't just trace amounts of organics, the plumes contained significant quantities,
so much that an initial mission to drill into the moon itself and detect life may not even
be necessary with everything spewing out of the moon and into space opening the way for
easier study.
But, since Cassini's instruments were never designed to detect complex organic molecules,
the knowledge is limited and there is no smoking gun for life on Enceladus, just its building
blocks.
But add that with recent evidence of nutrients in the waters of Enceladus that could be used
as food for microbes as well as evidence of hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean,
the evidence builds that Enceladus is ripe for life either to have arisen already, or
to arise in the future, depending on how long that takes on a moon thought to be relatively
young.
Tantalizingly however, while the organics that they did detect are not necessarily an
indicator of life, merely some of the materials that life uses that could be abiotic products
of the environment around the hydrothermal vents, those same organics also would be present
in the biological remains of microbial life.
Who knows what Cassini detected.
Thanks for listening!
I am futurist and science fiction author John Michael Godier currently plugging my first
book instead of Supermind because my first book actually features Europan Space Jellyfish
that are absolutely delicious.
But, back to fixing my computer which recently started talking and seems to have inexplicably
adopted an English accent, that was weird, not sure what's up with that and be sure
to check out my books at your favorite online book retailer and subscribe to my channel
for regular, in-depth explorations into the interesting, weird and unknown aspects of
this amazing universe in which we live.
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