You don't know that. Take a look at the life we've found at the bottom of the ocean around black smokers where the sun has never shined. Life down there is complex and bizzare.
One of the things you need for life is a temperature gradiant, it doesn't have to be provided by the sun or the system's parent star as the case may be.
It's facinating, here's how it works:
Enceladus is trapped in an orbital resonance with another moon, Dione, pulling it's orbit into eccentricity. This is dampened by the pull if Saturn itself causing the rocky core to flex and subsequently heat... so there's your temperature gradient.
The heating is sufficient enough to not only melt the ice into a vast liquid water, it also results in cryovulcanism at the south pole shooting massive water geysers at an impressive rate of 440 pounds per minute. Some wstee snows back down to the surface, most of it escapes and forms Saturn's E ring.
Scientifically speaking, life that we would understand needs three things: An energy source, (temperature gradient) a liquid solvent, (water) and essential chemicals. We've got two of the three at Enceladus and we're nailing down the third.
That really is amazing, kinda throws the whole 'goldilocks' idea of life and evolution needing these perfect conditions out the window, or at least shines a light on what some of those conditions can be, rather than just distance from the sun and size of the planetary body, is this moon bigger or smaller than earth? Just curious
Enceladus is a tiny, dinky little thing, barely the size of the Brittish Isles.
For a different comparison: If you imagine Earth the size of a basketball, showing our moon the size of a tennis ball is a remarkably accurate scale comparison. Next to that, place a marble and there's Enceladus.
The "goldilocks zone" is a useful tool but it needs an asterisk as extremophile life fight here on Earth has shown us. Even then, in the conventional sense, it should still be approached with caution.
Care to hazzard a guess how many goldilocks planets alien astronomers would find around our star?
Three.
Yup. Venus, Earth and Mars are all in Sol's HabZone, but something bad happened to Venus and Mars, the poor little runt died early.
What @willfree said. Lots of hydrogen concentrations, which may signal hydrothermal vents. Here on Earth, while the sea is (relatively) empty in many places, hydrothermal vents are teeming with bacteria and micro organisms that survive in the warmth and feed off chemicals released. Sometimes bigger things like tube worms and shrimp.
yall... we all know how big space is and there are so many galaxies like of course there's life outside earth there are definitely other civilisations out there who think of US as "aliens"
One of the things you need for life is a temperature gradiant, it doesn't have to be provided by the sun or the system's parent star as the case may be.
They're gonna fuck it up...and guess what? they gonna blame it on you~
That's fucked up bro. You gotta do something! D:
Enceladus is trapped in an orbital resonance with another moon, Dione, pulling it's orbit into eccentricity. This is dampened by the pull if Saturn itself causing the rocky core to flex and subsequently heat... so there's your temperature gradient.
The heating is sufficient enough to not only melt the ice into a vast liquid water, it also results in cryovulcanism at the south pole shooting massive water geysers at an impressive rate of 440 pounds per minute. Some wstee snows back down to the surface, most of it escapes and forms Saturn's E ring.
Scientifically speaking, life that we would understand needs three things: An energy source, (temperature gradient) a liquid solvent, (water) and essential chemicals. We've got two of the three at Enceladus and we're nailing down the third.
Now we just need to go there and look.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enceladus
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassini/cassini20110307.html
For a different comparison: If you imagine Earth the size of a basketball, showing our moon the size of a tennis ball is a remarkably accurate scale comparison. Next to that, place a marble and there's Enceladus.
The "goldilocks zone" is a useful tool but it needs an asterisk as extremophile life fight here on Earth has shown us. Even then, in the conventional sense, it should still be approached with caution.
Care to hazzard a guess how many goldilocks planets alien astronomers would find around our star?
Three.
Yup. Venus, Earth and Mars are all in Sol's HabZone, but something bad happened to Venus and Mars, the poor little runt died early.
Saddle up the ponies, let's go!