Cassini gravity measurements and a new model indicate that Dione may have a subsurface ocean like several other bodies in the solar system:
Saturn's moon Dione has joined the growing list of watery bodies in our solar system. Data from NASA's Cassini probe indicate that a liquid ocean some 20 miles deep exists far below the icy surface of the moon. This means that its interior looks similar to two other Saturnian moons, Titan and Enceladus, both of which hide vast oceans beneath a thin crust of ice. Dione is likely different in at least one respect though: the data indicate it's ocean buried much deeper.
The researchers based their analysis on gravity measurements taken by the Cassini spacecraft as it flew by Dione, tracking subtle shifts in the trajectory of the craft due to Dione's gravitational pull. Similar methods have been used before, but the data always seem to indicate that Dione had no such subterranean ocean. The new data, combined with a revised model of how the moon's crust should behave, changes that assumption. [...] Dione now joins Titan, Enceladus, Europa, Ganymede and Pluto as the solar system's wettest places — beyond Earth. And, given that we seem to find new bodies of liquid water every time we take a closer look at our solar system, more are likely to come.
Enceladus' and Dione's floating ice shells supported by minimum stress isostasy (DOI: 10.1002/2016GL070650) (DX)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @12:18PM
This is a very muddled thought process. "Earlier the data always seemed to indicate Dione had no ocean, so astronomers assumed it didn't, now they have a new model of the crust that means it definitely has an ocean!"
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday October 05 2016, @12:41PM
Humankind achieves incredible feats of science and engineering, such as finding buried oceans on faraway celestial bodies. Yet it's still unable to teach basic grammar to its children right here on Earth...
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Wednesday October 05 2016, @01:01PM
Its spelling, it's causing brain itch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @02:52PM
Humankind achieves incredible feats of science and engineering, such as finding buried oceans on faraway celestial bodies. Yet it's still unable to teach basic grammar to its children right here on Earth...
Just keep this handy, and pull it out when necessary. Oh, and you're welcome.
It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it
is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It
isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.
-- Oxford University Press, Edpress News
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @03:07PM
It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it
is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It
isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs.
-- Oxford University Press, Edpress News
I sent the above to the author of the article, Nathaniel Scharping (nscharping@gmail.com).
He appears to be both a native English speaker (from the United States) and college "educated".
Perhaps Roscoe can set him straight. I sure hope so.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday October 05 2016, @03:26PM
Now this is the kind of participation I like to see.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 05 2016, @08:15PM
Journalists these days hit spell check and call it a day, probably ignoring the grammatical hints. Proofreaders, too, seem to have gone the way of the dodo. Curiously enough if you ever read archival newspaper articles older than a hundred years ago, you find they were as fraught with spelling and grammatical errors then. The high watermark for correct usage was sometime between 1900 and 1970, it seems.
On a related note, is it correct to contract "its is" to "its's?" For example: "I have a ball and the dog does, too. Its's chewed."
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @04:26PM
You misunderstand; scientists and academics and educated members of humankind had made this discovery. The ignorant masses that are unfamiliar with your grammatical concepts (or choose to not care about them) are not the ones doing the rocket science, for good reason.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:16PM
A logical race would use a phonetics-only language. Puny humans!
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday October 05 2016, @01:49PM
So this is all very exciting stuff obviously, because these oceans could hold life. Amazing as that discovery would be, however, it doesn't help us humans all that much in our quest to colonise the solar system / galaxy / universe. If life was found swimming about on one of these moons, let's say Europa, then I could imagine a manned research base on that moon to study the native life, but any thoughts of terraforming that world or exploiting its resources on an industrial scale would go out the airlock. That world would essentially be closed off to us.
Also, imagine if we found an abundance of life In Europa's ocean, but then found Dione and Enceladus to be completely barren. I daresay we could take those barren worlds for ourselves, but by the time we have the ability to do that we could far more easily and comfortably live in an O'Neill cylinder in orbit, mining asteroids, comets and planetary rings. What to do with those empty worlds then? Leave them be and let nature take its course? Use them for tourism/ sightseeing / extreme sports? Or maybe we could transplant life from Europa to the other worlds, just to make the universe that little bit more interesting and create one more little outpost against entropy.
However the fact that there are so many of these subsurface oceans in our little patch of sky does suggest something else: That, galaxy-wide, life adapted to such environments might well be more common than drysiders like ourselves. What's more, it seems likely that there are far more viable habitats for sub-ice-oceanic life to colonise than for the likes of us. It may be that in order to colonise the galaxy we have to look beyond one specie or even one ecosystem, and venture forth in co-operation with our neighbours. It might be that ten thousand years from now the life forms that venture forth past the heliosphere will have flippers and gills rather than legs and lungs, but they will owe to us the engineering and technology that takes them there.
There's a decent scifi novel in there somewhere.
(Score: 2) by jimtheowl on Wednesday October 05 2016, @04:38PM
Who says that this is humanity's quest?
What about exploring, studying and understanding the solar system / galaxy / universe and ourselves first?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:26PM
It's more like: who can stop humans from taking advantage of the solar system's abundant resources and spreading the human race further than Earth generally? The U.S. or U.N.? Maybe initially, but not for too long.
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(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday October 05 2016, @08:21PM
I like that idea. It's also possible that intelligent life has evolved on Earth before, and has long since departed, having cleaned up after themselves to make way for other intelligences to evolve here.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 06 2016, @02:05AM
Well, So Long and thanks for all the fish!
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @01:53PM
Let me say it clearly so there is no misunderstanding: the 'space program' is a hoax. This "Cassini" story is out only to support the Heliocentric model. Sure the scientists behind the publication may have no clue, as the data is given to them (ceremoniously) and they have no control of or access to the data obtaining instrument. No matter how hard you try, you will find nor a curvature to the Earth, consistent with that of a convex sphere 6397 km average radius, neither evidence that it is spinning.
Some guys, at the 1700's, allegedly 'measured' the distance to the Sun using the transit of Venus. This was passed into the schoolbooks as fact and was "verified" by NASA "using radar" back in the 1950's.
The same thing happened with the Cavendish's "gravity" experiment in the 18th, and the so-called "Fouceault's Pendulum" sometime in the 19th century. Both were inconclusive, but rushed into the education system without debate or questioning as facts, in support of the Heliocentric theory. "Foucault's" pendulums where hastily set up in science museums around the world to "prove" the "simple fact" of the rotation of the Earth, but all are made of ferrous metallic material and are mechanically driven.
This is an ERRONEOUS application of the scientific method, as those claims are not verifiable, experiments were not repeated, and all "space facts" originate from the same source which is a proven and consistent liar.
Imagine having a million dollars. With only a tiny tad of planning, you would probably never ever have to work in your life again. NASA is siphoning FIFTEEN (15) million dollars per day, and still does not provide uninterrupted 24/7 reality TV of her alleged "space station" and "EVA"s.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday October 05 2016, @02:50PM
You get a ribbon for space article attendance.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday October 05 2016, @04:33PM
Let's skip over all the conspiracy nonsense and address the only vaguely sane point in the above rant:
NASA is siphoning FIFTEEN (15) million dollars per day,
What exactly do you think NASA does with that money? Do you think they shovel it into the fuel tanks of the spacecraft and then burn it all up?
No, they spend it. They spend it on materials, fuels, high-tech parts, tools and equipment. Most of all, they pay the wages of thousands of engineers, administrators, astronauts, IT folks, telephone sanitizers and who knows who else.
In other words, those FIFTEEN (15) million dollars per day get pumped straight back in to the economy, enabling people to support businesses and businesses to build and invent cool stuff and in fact entire industries to exist at all. Oh, and, you know, build cool stuff and advance human knowledge and explore other planets and invent and test out all kinds of new technologies in the process.
If you want to talk about wasted money look at the military, which makes NASA look like a homeless guy begging for change.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 05 2016, @09:21PM
You are arguing over the price of beans with a dude who denies the existence of beans.