Saturn's moon Rhea may have a breathable atmosphere

[Malcolm Linus]

Saturn's moon Rhea may have a breathable atmosphere (http://io9.com/5699149/saturns-moon-rhea-may-have-a-breathable-atmosphere) - io9.com (http://io9.com/).


Saturn's icy moon Rhea has an oxygen and carbon dioxide atmosphere that is very similar to Earth's. Even better, the carbon dioxide suggests there's life - and that possibly humans could breathe the air.

It seems oxygen is far more abundant than we ever suspected, particularly on moons that seem to be completely frozen solid. We recently found evidence of oxygen on Jupiter's moons Europa and Ganymede, and now this finding on [Rhea].

(...)

While the presence oxygen is relatively easy to understand, the carbon dioxide is actually even more intriguing. The gas is likely created by reactions between organic molecules and oxidants down on the moon's surface. (...) This is just further proof that the building blocks and basic prerequisites of life exist all throughout the solar system...


I find myself asking if these discoveries of "hospitable" conditions in our solar system are the results of changes that have happened recently, or if we are only now able to discover these things (or are being fed it by TPTB at this point in time.)

[Operator]

I find myself asking if these discoveries of "hospitable" conditions in our solar system are the results of changes that have happened recently, or if we are only now able to discover these things (or are being fed it by TPTB at this point in time.)

Maybe 'or' in your sentence should be replace by 'and' ... ;)

Bill mentioned a humanity 2.0 civilization in another thread ... I think there are more than one of such types of parallel civilizations (the 2.0 maybe somewhat misleading) AND we're catching
up on some of them. Because some of them realize we're going to unveil their hidden advanced capabilities they respond in a variety of ways ...

Some will let the truth drip through ... and others will bluntly try to obstruct our advancements.

[DawgBone]

I'm trying to imagine what Saturn looks like from Rhea. Must be quite a sight!

[norman]

IF Mars once had a 'healthy' atmosphere that was blown away by a catastrophic event, where did it go? Would it have drifted about the solar system as a bubble of gas eventually being drawn into another body?

[Fredkc]

I'm trying to imagine what Saturn looks like from Rhea. Must be quite a sight!
Very very big, I imagine.
Yup, I just looked into it and courtesy of Ars Astronomico (http://www.arsastronautica.com/article.php?news_id=7), here is Saturn from Rhea:

http://www.arsastronautica.com/upload/news/pesek-saturn-rhea.jpg

http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/oct2009/2/8/saturn-pic-nasa-901269781.jpg



It seems oxygen is far more abundant than we ever suspected, particularly on moons that seem to be completely frozen solid. So... breathing is ok, but the weather sucks. Hmm... sounds just like what I woke up to this morning.

Good morning, everyone,
Fred

[Carmody]

IF Mars once had a 'healthy' atmosphere that was blown away by a catastrophic event, where did it go? Would it have drifted about the solar system as a bubble of gas eventually being drawn into another body?

dispersion is considered to be the norm..(hah- now intended after realizing that I'd punned it), but the more effectual of the modern theories has the universe being electrical in nature..in order to remove all the issues that the standard model of physics and the universe is unable to answer. in that case, the particles might just remain in fairly grouped associations. and might be possible to get them to move in fairly large groupings. Who knows, really. Not enough data in the public domain to truly support either consideration. Well, there is the behavioral aspects of solar ejecta and that of comets, etc.

[truthseekerdan]

An oxygen atmosphere has been found on Saturn's second largest moon, Rhea, astronomers announced Thursday—but don't hold your breath for colonization opportunities.

For one thing, the 932-mile-wide (1,500-kilometer-wide), ice-covered moon is more than 932 million miles (1.5 billion kilometers) from Earth. For another, the average surface temperature is -292 degrees Fahrenheit (-180 degrees Celsius).

And at less than 62 miles (100 kilometers) thick, the newfound oxygen layer is so thin that, at Earthlike temperatures and pressure, Rhea's entire atmosphere would fit in a single midsize building.

Still, the discovery implies that worlds with oxygen-filled air may not be so unusual in the cosmos. (Related: "Potentially Habitable Planets Are Common, Study Says.")

At about 327,000 miles (527,000 kilometers) from Saturn, Rhea orbits inside the planet's magnetic field. Rhea's oxygen atmosphere is believed to be maintained by the ongoing chemical breakdown of water ice on the moon's surface, driven by radiation from Saturn's magnetosphere.

The Hubble Space Telescope and NASA's Galileo probe found in 1995 that a similar process creates tenuous oxygen atmospheres on Jupiter's ice moons Europa and Ganymede.

"The major implication of this finding at Rhea is that oxygen atmospheres at icy moons, until now only detected at Europa and Ganymede, may in fact be commonplace around those irradiated icy moons throughout the universe with sufficient mass to hold an atmosphere," said study leader Ben Teolis of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas.

Knowing where and how oxygen exists in the universe may in turn help scientists plan future robotic and manned missions.

Read more: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/11/101125-saturn-moon-oxygen-atmosphere-discovered-science-space/

[Malcolm Linus]

Interesting find, for sure. They just keep coming up with new discoveries about the moons in our own solar system.

[truthseekerdan]

This one is from National Geographic with more info.

[BonaDea444]

A huge storm has appeared on Saturn that was detected by an amateur astronomer earlier in the week. If you do a google news search for 'saturn storm' there are a mere four or five articles with only one 'major' source reporting on it (Universe Today). Interestingly enough, at least for me right now, that link isn't even working. I'm not sure if this is true (I'm sure some of you on here will know), but I've read that all of the information released to the public about anything involving space discoveries has to be cleared by the Vatican first. If that proves to be the case, I wonder if the fact amateur astronomers discovered it has anything to do with it being released and why more major news outlets aren't reporting on it (or haven't at least yet). It just seems odd to me considering how much the MSM hypes everything up but no one is reporting on what UniverseToday called a "Monster of a storm."

I'll do the work for you, here's the Google News search link:
http://www.google.com/search?q=saturn+storm&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a#sclient=psy&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US%3Aofficial&tbs=nws:1%2Cqdr%3Aw&q=storm+saturn+&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&fp=cdde7568afd2b943

Blessings!!!

[BonaDea444]

The link is working now. Here it is: http://www.universetoday.com/82891/storm-on-saturn-has-grown-into-a-monster/

[NinjaPhil]

thanks for the link - good read and much appreciated. These kind of storms on the larger planets simply amaze me.

[Lunesoleil]

Rhea is also an asteroid under the code 577 which entered the sign of Virgo on September 15 and until August 6, 2024 because of this retrograde phase between January and May 2024, so Rhea will squat the sign of Virgo almost for 11 months.
If you want to know where it is on the day you were born, it's HERE (http://www.true-node.com/eph0/)

@source wikipédia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhea_(mythology)) : In Greek mythology, Rhea, or Rheia (in ancient Greek Ῥέα / Rhea or Ῥεία / Rheía), is a Queen of the Titans and Greek Titanide of Fertility, daughter of Ouranos (the Sky) and Gaia (the Earth), sister and wife of the Titan Cronos, and mother of the Cronides, the gods and goddesses Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus.

For a long time, Cronus and Rhea reigned over the Universe. Cronus, warned by Ouranos and Gaia that one of his children must dethrone him, seeks to escape his destiny by devouring his children. During the birth of Zeus, Rhea tricked her husband into giving him a stone wrapped in a cloth to swallow. In the meantime, she hid the child in Crete. Later, when Zeus reaches adulthood, he forces his father to regurgitate the stone and his five siblings who grew up in Kronos' womb.

In Roman mythology, Rhea is assimilated to Cybele, nicknamed the grandmother of the gods, the “Great Phrygian Goddess”, the “Great Mother” (Magna Mater) or the “Mother of the gods”. It is the subject of an orgiastic cult, with ritual mutilations, which spread from Asia Minor to Rome, where it is officially welcomed in its form of “Black Stone”.

In performances, she is often escorted by lions. Little present in the stories, she intervenes in the story of Dionysus whom she cures of his madness by introducing him to its mysteries. But she is best known for the spurned love of the handsome Attis (her partner) who went crazy and emasculated.

Rhea is also nicknamed depending on the locality: goddess of Dindyme, Ida, Berecynths, etc. She is also assimilated to Ops, Sabine goddess of fertility linked to the Earth.