Life found on the Moon!

 

This will be the headline of some report put out by NASA or some other space agency in the future, but it will not be our moon where it is found. Our moon is barren, though water ice has been discovered in the shadows of some of its craters.

One hundred sixty plus moons orbit planets in our solar system alone. My bet is someday we find life on at least one of them, maybe a couple. Not intelligent life, but microbial at least. I believe multi-cellular life, (squiggly-wigglies) will be found on one.

“Aren’t all moons the same?” you might ask. In reality each one has a history that makes one as different as one can imagine.

Here are some of my favorites.

Io: A moon of Jupiter subjected to tidal flexing more than any object known. The gravity of Jupiter pulls at the crust of Io like our moon causes the ocean tides here on Earth. Io experiences more volcanic, seismic and tectonic activity than any other body in this solar system. Its innards are thrown out into space and some fall on other moons of the jovian giant.

Europa: Has more liquid water than the planet we live on, even though it is smaller than earth. The surface is covered with several miles of ice that shows signs of the same plate tectonics that shape our mountains and some of our deepest ocean trenches. The elements of life are delivered by Io. This should make a soup perfect for life. Extremophiles are plentiful here on Earth, why shouldn’t they exist where ever the environment supplies the ingredients for life?

Enceladus: A moon of Saturn. Water geysers have been observed, meaning liquid water beneath the ice. More soup.

Titan: Another satellite of Saturn is the most mysterious of the moons. A dense atmosphere obscures most data, but is a wealth of data in itself. Hydrocarbons fall like rain and snow. Liquid methane flows like rivers do here pouring into lakes. Are there slow moving squiggly wigglies wiggling around in those lakes? Only time will tell as long as we keep exploring.

I want to know, don’t you?