IS IT POSSIBLE A LIFE IN THE SATURN SYSTEM ?

 

 

“All civilizations become either spacefaring or extinct.”

-Carl Sagan 

The space is a mysterious book, the door into the unknown dimension. Each time we think we are reaching the point of understanding the dark universe, we end up facing with our own limitations as a human race. There are so many important questions about our cosmological existence that we will never answer, there are thousands of space corners that we will never see. It can’t be that we are the only one  in the depth of universe and its own sound of silence. It must be that somewhere, someone is also looking for us, to bring peace or to start war. Maybe we will never find out, maybe we will and maybe it is better to even stop searching for. Behind the door, could be a friend and could be an enemy. Time will tell. In the meantime, our eyes are staring at starry skies, wondering who or what is out there and what it looks like living on the another Planet, without our oxygen, our green vegetation and our blue world.

The scientists do not give up to offer their theories, based on many shuttle missions, smart calculations and personal researches. Life could be everywhere and nowhere. Who will tell us ? Our super advanced technology that is challenges the eternal order of the universe.  We are sending our robots on other planets, hoping they will detect a small sign of life or possibility that we start our new life there, after we destroy our innocent Earth.  The space exploration is a big step for humankind but it is also the symptom of our selfish behaviour that has influenced nature and wildlife, turning them into shadows. If I think of our perspective in some other planet, I can only see the future disorders of that planet. Unfortunately, I can say that we deserve to find out if somewhere else could be a good life for us because we would bring our ignorance, greed and egoism, like an epidemic disease.

I love Saturn, with all its colors and shining auras. It looks like a majestic king with an  unique crown, in its own lost and forgotten kingdom.  The sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter, is known as a gas giant with its 62 moons. According to the available studies, the Saturn is composed of iron-nickel, silicon and oxygen. Its core has a deep layer of metallic hydrogen while its middle layer consists of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium.  In the upper atmosphere of Saturn is a high level of ammonia crystals and with such amount of metallic base and its natural size, this Planet  is obtaining the strong magnetic field, 580 times that of Earth. Its wild structure and rough physics does not have tolerance for a living form:“Saturn’s core consists of liquid hydrogen, molten rock and melted ice. Although there is melted ice, the pressure near the core is estimated to be 5 million atmospheres (5,066,250 bar), which is beyond the pressure that can be tolerated by any known extremophile (organism that lives in an extreme environment).Saturn has only trace amounts of water in its atmosphere, and these are tied up within clouds in the upper atmosphere. The temperatures in these clouds are estimated to be negative 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit), and the pressure is approximately 7.9 atmospheres (8 bar). These conditions may be tolerable to life, since bacteria on Earth have been found living in ice. Even so, the lack of complex organic molecules makes life in Saturn’s atmosphere unlikely.”

However, this  Saturn has so amazing  colorful satellites that science believes that one of them could be a host of exterrestrial life. Why? Because some of them develop the positive conditions for a potential organic life.  The studies about Saturn’s beautiful moons are not so young. The Cassini – Huygens mission has launched in 1997, as the common  project of NASA, ESA and ISA and focused on discovering more about exotic moons.  The first great surprise comes out with Saturn’s coldest and brightest moon, named Enceladus. By April 2014, the Saturn studies have shown that this moon is definitely having a salty ocean because there were signs of geyser salty  particles, flavored with potassium and sodium. The scientists have concluded that there must be a heating center with boiling water, so called black and white smokers in the oceans that could be a base for some kind of life, as it was the case on the Earth.  This moon is still waiting to be researched and studies because we do not know exactly if microorganism aren’t there, forming their colonies so far away from any outer disturbance.

The moon Titan is larger than even planet Mercury. Its atmosphere is combining the presence of nitrogen and methane.  The scientist from John Hopkins University, Darrel Strobel has analyzed the data facts from NASA Cassini spacecraft mission and has concluded that the hydrogen was flowing down from the atmosphere and then disappearing. This only means that something or someone has used it in some kind of biological or chemical process.

On the other side, Hyperion is small, cratered and consists of water ice, carbon dioxide and organic molecules. It is believed that when those organic molecules are exposed to the strong ultraviolet sunlight, they are able to create the biological molecules.  For now, the available studies do not go so far and claim that life on the Hyperion is possible but there are basic conditions that it could exist. The same is with Dione, that has a liquid water, positive to allow forming of life. The rest of moons are still a mystery to the powerful telescope eye of the human race’s space missions.  Some of them are catastrophic, wild and dangerous but some could be a source of a new and fascinating life that we can only imagine in our science fictions movies and books.

The ringed planet Saturn is maybe not welcoming the biology what we know or prefer but we must give a chance to the theories about life that could be created without crucial organic elements. If we always search for a life that we think it is possible or should be possible, we may miss the opportunity to see the life designed in the impossible way, the way we refuse to accept. What if all those planets and its satellites have a specific species, grounded on the unfriendly rules and in dangerous environment ?  I have an opinion that what is good for us and the world we know and we accept can be a deadly for some other creatures and its biology. Maybe that is so made that we stay in our dimension and never cross over, into the another. The beauty of Saturn and its diamonds is just a one more proof that the perfection of universe is older than the perfection of human race.