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/sci/ - Science & Math

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1606797 No.1606797 [Reply] [Original]

Titan, Saturn's largest moon, has hundreds of times more liquid hydrocarbons than Earth.

This proves one of two things: Either there is, or has beem, life in places other than Earth.

OR, that hydrocarbons are not made by decaying organic matter.

Picture unrelated.

>> No.1606810

I actually don't think anyone ever said that hydrocarbons are exclusive products of organic matter.

>> No.1606816

hurr durr it also has liquid methane so there must have been cows on Titan at one point to make the methane herp a derp.

>> No.1606819

What's the deal with all these moons and their crazy good prospect for living organisms? Why does nobody care about them? Why don't why go there instead of mars?

>> No.1606842

>>1606819

We send probes. Space travel aint easy bro.

>> No.1606845

>>1606819
We could hardly go to mars now. The ratio of probes making it there is awful. Nine out of the twelve never made it. Why do we care? Last I heard we only cared because there was water. People like to get the idea of more carbon based life being out there. Oh, and one of the moons around Jupiter is a constantly crushed and reshaping sphere of ice. Things don't hold up when they planet's curvature has phases.

I don't think

>> No.1606847

interstellar space is full of hydrocarbons. OP is a faggot.

>> No.1606859

>>1606847
[citation needed]

>> No.1606863

>>1606819
The only reason people care at all about Mars is because they're stupid and just follow whatever is popular.

Everyone in the US has had this idea of colonies on Mars built up on them since childhood, and much like flying cars, they refuse to face the reality of the situation: Mars is a poor candidate for an offworld colony.

It's basically a bigger version of our moon that is further away. It's hard to land on due to its shitty combination of gravity and tenuous atmosphere, it's got fuck all for mineral wealth compared to easily mine-able asteroids, it may or may not have more water, and it's really far away. Just go to the moon, you can accomplish as much there as you could on Mars.

>> No.1607051

>>1606810
>>DURRRR
hydro carbons ARE organic matter,
what is wrong with you idiots?

>> No.1607053

>>1606819
You have a infinite income and unlimited man hours I assume? Get to it.

>> No.1607054

>>1606863
No stupid, mars is close and has water, thats the most important part possible, that and the potential for an atmosphere. hell, you could even set up industrial stuff down there and wouldn't have to worry bout air pollution because every little bit would help. (only problem is getting things to burn but we can work on that) anyway sending robots first wouldn't be a bad idea, but i think we should tackle the problem of our gravity well either by mag lev or space elevator or something before trying to colonize space and the planets.

>> No.1607059

Inb4 humanity harvests fossil fuels from Titan in the near future because ours have ran out. Taking the easy quick fix yet again instead of developing renewable energies that they can't tax as well.

>> No.1607065

>>1607051

> definition of organic : deal with carbon

>> No.1607066

>>1607059
I smell a possible future.

>> No.1607082

>>1607054
There are asteroids out there with TONS of ice. That are, essentially, giant ice balls.

>> No.1607092
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1607092

>>1607051
>doesn't know what organic in terms of chemistry means

>>1606797
>thinks hydrocarbons are exclusively products of living matter

>> No.1607100

wat

>> No.1607103

>>1607059
>>1606863
You guys keep saying mining <span class="math">anything[/spoiler] in space is easy. It's definitely fucking not. I doubt we'll be able to do it for decades if not close to a century or more

>> No.1607104
File: 203 KB, 1000x904, AsteroidChipotle.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1607104

>>1607054
>No stupid, mars is close and has water

The Moon is closer and has water. Pointless waste of time to go to Mars. Even Venus is closer to Earth than Mars.

And I'm sorry, but we're not going to be terraforming Mars any time soon. Giving that as a reason to go to Mars NOW is just ludicrous. You're talking about spending hundreds of trillions of dollars over lifetimes. It's not going to happen.

The justifications for going to Mars are all completely hollow. There's no reason for people to go there at the moment. There's no reason to even go further than orbit. Getting into another gravity well that you've got to fight your way back out of, when there's so many resources floating around in asteroids and comets is pointless.

For an incredibly small fraction of the price it would take to terraform and colonize mars, we could dig out an iron-nickel asteroid and build a space station inside it to support a few thousand people.

Hell for a small fraction of the cost of terraforming mars, we could do that with dozens of asteroids.

>> No.1607128

>>1607104

Not to mention the fact that Mars isn't protected from cosmic radiation and solar winds by a magnetic field, not to mention the problems associated with living permanently in a weak gravity well.

>> No.1607135

>>1607128
Nowhere in the solar system besides Earth is a good candidate for life. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just fantasizing

>> No.1607144

Has it ever been claimed that all hydrocarbons in the universe come from decaying life?

>> No.1607150

>>1607103
Nobody is saying it's easy.

But it's certainly easier than terraforming an entire goddamn planet while we can barely even get out of our own gravity well.

Going to Mars to colonize it is quite simply an unrealistic goal at this point in time. Hell, just doing something like landing people on a near-Earth asteroid is an unrealistic goal, let alone mining one out. I'd be amazed if, after another 60 years we've even gotten as far as the planning stages of doing it.

>> No.1607152

>>1607135
Titan, Europa and Enceladus would like to have a word with you.

>> No.1607157

>>1607104
i thought that thumbnail was a pic of chipotle lol

>> No.1607167
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1607167

>>1607152

The radiation there is so intense you'd be dead within 10 minutes...

>> No.1607171

>>1607144
No.

But to be fair to the OP, even though he doesn't realize this - the hydrocarbons [methane] in Titan's atmosphere should not be there. Some unknown process is replenishing it.

We don't know if it's life, or a geological process, but it's happening.

>Energy from the Sun should have converted all traces of methane in Titan's atmosphere into more complex hydrocarbons within 50 million years — a short time compared to the age of the Solar System. This suggests that methane must be somehow replenished by a reservoir on or within Titan itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_%28moon%29

>> No.1607179

>>1607152
Bullshit, it's still highly unlikely for a whole number of reasons. And you guys keep saying humans could survive permanently on these worlds, that's even more stupid.

Don't start telling me about the hydrocarbon lakes, possible heated liquid oceans etc, I know it all already.

>> No.1607183

>>1607167
The radiation where?

Titan and Enceladus are both moons of Saturn, and Saturn isn't particularly dangerous as far as radiation goes.

Europa's the only one in a dangerous radiation area - but we suspect any life on Europa is actually far beneath the icy surface which would provide pretty good insulation from Jupiter's radiation.

>> No.1607188

>>1607179
>And you guys keep saying humans could survive permanently on these worlds, that's even more stupid.

Nobody even mentioned that in this thread dude.

>> No.1607195

>life must be liek human life

hurhur

>> No.1607219

>>1607195
>implying that there aren't characteristics that anything that could be called life must have

>> No.1607235

>>1607183

O mai. I thought Jupiter for some reason. My bad, /sci/lon.

>> No.1607253

>>1607235
Speaking of which, what if Jupiter became a star?

>> No.1607257

>>1607253
You need to add another... 8? 9? Jupiters to it before it undergoes spontaneous fusion.

Jupiter can't really become a star.

>> No.1607265

>>1607253
We'd all be fucked.

Absolutely fucked.

>> No.1607276

>>1607257
I know that it can't now, but what if back when the solar system was forming, Jupiter's chance of becoming a star came to be? I'm guessing shit'll get too bright, too hot, and too radiated?

>> No.1608133
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1608133

You guys jump to conclusion far too quickly.

The implication was, if there are methods of making hydrocarbons other than decaying carbon based lifeforms, then we need to find out what they are, rather than spending all of our time in a circle jerk about SUPPOSEDLY finite ressources. If we can produce natural gasses, for instance, at a fixed rate, then everyone will be better off.

Pull your head out of ass and stop looking down at people based on assumptions.

>> No.1608149

I mean, fuck. We're warring over the damn stuff. Entire economies run off the assumption that we're rapidly burning through all of the past life on Earth.

>> No.1608158

But no, you faggots are too busy fantasizing about "the great exodus" to even bother seeing if one is really needed.

It constantly amazes me how such smart people can be so stupid.

>> No.1608162

And yes, I MAD.

>> No.1608172

Threads like this keep reminding me that /sci/ has yet to lrn2science

>> No.1608608

> The implication was, if there are methods of making hydrocarbons other than decaying carbon based lifeforms

There's no "if" about it. The mechanisms are well known, e.g. 2CO2 + 2H2O -> 2(CH2O) + 2O2 (photosynthesis) or CO + H2-> CH4 + H2O (methanation). The problem is that they all require energy input, which make them energy storage mechanims, not energy sources.

The bottom line is that we have been living off of our "savings" (stored hydrocarbons accrued over millions of years). As those savings run out, we're going to need to find sustainable sources and to start living within our means.

>> No.1608620

wow fuck i just read op's post and it's full retarded.

you realize geology is not astrophysics, right? why the fuck would the geologist bother to include a disclaimer like "this theory here applies only to organic deposits on earth" to biogenesis, he's not talking to retards.