Ted
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« Reply #30 on: July 18, 2015, 12:22:38 PM » |
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Nasa are estimating that the surfaces they have imaged are less than a hundred million years old, which in astronomical terms is almost brand spanking new.
Desp
I hadn't seen that. I was expecting the ice to be somehow (glacial movement under gravity?) renewing itself over a significantly shorter period - maybe 1 million years. The surface of the ice wouldn't have to move very much to wipe out any visible evidence of small craters.
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Ivan
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« Reply #31 on: July 21, 2015, 11:50:51 PM » |
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Looks like it may have a sub-surface ocean.....which means an outside chance of harbouring life - who would have thought it?
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biff
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« Reply #32 on: July 22, 2015, 09:34:41 AM » |
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In 2014, The showed a program on the telly about new discoveries on the bottom of the ocean floor near the vents from which the gas,s escape. The new technology made it possible for the cameras to record the trip with much greater clarity than before and they discovered that things were nothing like they expected them to be. The laws of physics took a hammering. There was a large lake down there totally separate from the ocean waters that surrounded it. There were large ice like formations and on the shores of these lakes there were what seemed to be a community of plants and insects which were surviving and thriving in extremely hot conditions. The exploration was a great success but it raised 10 times more questions than it answered. If my memory serves me right, I think it was 3 mile down below the ocean waves. The point being, that if there is water under the surface of Pluto, then there is every chance that it has some kind of life form. Biff
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« Last Edit: July 22, 2015, 09:41:55 AM by biff »
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skyewright
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« Reply #33 on: July 22, 2015, 10:10:55 AM » |
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In 2014, The showed a program on the telly about new discoveries on the bottom of the ocean floor near the vents from which the gas,s escape. Here's a link to a recent In Our Time (BBC R4) program about 'Extremophiles' (the fancy name for things that can live in extreme conditions). http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05zl3v2N.B. Yes this is relevant to this topic, the findings about life in these situations are being applied much further afield - two of the 3 experts are "space" people & one of them is an "Astrobiologist"!
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Regards David 3.91kWp PV (17 x Moser Baer 230 and Aurora PVI-3.6-OUTD-S-UK), slope 40°, WSW, Lat 57° 9' (Isle of Skye)
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Ivan
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« Reply #34 on: July 22, 2015, 12:59:50 PM » |
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Astrobiology is a very exciting field. There aren't many areas where you can be an expert in a field that there is no evidence for, and may well not exist at all!
Was the 'ice' in the programme you saw, Biff, methane hydrate? I would have liked to see the programme. There was also a deep drilling experiment into Lake Vostok(sp?) in Russia. Deep subterranean lake, that is effectively isolated from the rest of the biosphere. The idea was to see if life existed or even independently evolved down there. Never heard the results, but it would have implications to the sub-surface oceans of other worlds.
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biff
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« Reply #35 on: July 22, 2015, 01:20:38 PM » |
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I think it had methane in the name. It was not real ice but it looked like and behaved like ice,except that deep red and blue flames came out from vents in the side of it at times. Weird stuff. The water in the undersea lake was a milky green color at times and a different composition from the water surrounding it. Biff
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stannn
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« Reply #37 on: October 03, 2015, 03:09:39 PM » |
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