Water found on Enceladus, Sci-Fi crowd yawns
Originally posted: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090624/ap_on_sc/us_sci_saturn_moon
NEW YORK – Scientists have found new evidence that one of Saturn’s moons has an ocean beneath its surface. That’s important because liquid water is a key ingredient for life.
The moon is an icy body called Enceladus (en-SELL-uh-duss.) It gives off huge plumes of water vapor and ice grains, and scientists used the Cassini spacecraft to sample material from those jets.
They found particles containing sodium salts, which indicates that the plumes arise from liquid water.
But a second team of scientists found no sign of sodium with a different sampling method. They concluded there could still be a deep ocean on Enceladus, but that there are also other possible explanations for the moon’s jets.
Both papers are reported in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature.
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Yeah, see the problem with this is that Arthur C. Clark wrote about this years and years ago. It’s nice for it to be 100% confirmed, but it continues to astound me just how right this man was about a lot of things. So here’s hoping for big black obelisks, and mono-molecular protective diamond coating for all the world’s architectural landmarks.