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Cassini may be dead – but its data shows basic building blocks of life spewing from Enceladus
It's another encouraging sign that Saturn's most interesting moon could be habitable
By Katyanna Quach 3 Oct 2019 at 09:01
An artist's impression of Enceladus' inner structure and its hydrothermal vents blasting plumes. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Hydrothermal vents on Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, are blasting out organic compounds that could provide the right ingredients to make amino acids, the building blocks of life as we know it.
Amino acids, considered an essential for life, are used to form proteins in all known living organisms. They contain carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen - these elements have all been found in the compounds detected on Enceladus, according to a paper published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on Wednesday.
Data from the Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer onboard NASA's now-defunct Cassini spacecraft found "low-mass organic compounds in the Enceladean ice grains: nitrogen-bearing, oxygen-bearing, and aromatic." The ice grains were spewed from the hydrothermal vents on the Moon's ocean floor.
The plumes of water vapour and ice burst through the cracks of its icy surface and fly off into space, allowing spacecraft like Cassini to sniff out their chemical composition. On Earth, hydrothermal vents provide heat and energy to kickstart chemical reactions to produce amino acids.
"If the conditions are right, these molecules coming from the deep ocean of Enceladus could be on the same reaction pathway as we see here on Earth," said Nozair Khawaja, lead author of the paper and a researcher at the Free University of Berlin, Germany. "We don't yet know if amino acids are needed for life beyond Earth, but finding the molecules that form amino acids is an important piece of the puzzle."
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The organic compounds are first dissolved in Enceladus' ocean. Next, they're vapourised in the hydrothermal plumes before finally condensing and freezing when they come into contact with the Moon's icy surface.
It's not the first time that organic compounds have been discovered on Saturn's sixth largest moon. The researchers also found heftier, insoluble organic molecules that they reckon float on the surface of Enceladus' ocean.
The compounds in the amine and carbonyl chemical groups are smaller and soluble and could be "ideal precursors for...biologically relevant organic compounds in the warm depths of Enceladus' ocean," according to the paper.
"This work shows that Enceladus' ocean has reactive building blocks in abundance, and it's another green light in the investigation of the habitability of Enceladus," Frank Postberg, co-author of the paper and a professor of planetary sciences at the Free University of Berlin, added. ®
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Heledd Fychan MS – calls on WRU CEO to go following extremely serious allegations of sexism and misogyny
Posted on January 25 2023, 6:02 PM
Plaid Cymru's spokesperson for Sports, Heledd Fychan MS, has called on the WRU's CEO Steve Phillips to resign following the extremely serious allegations of sexism and misogyny at the WRU.
Following a BBC investigation, allegations have come to light of a toxic culture within the WRU, with the former head of Wales women's rugby Charlotte Wathan saying that she considered suicide and recounted that a male colleague had joked in front of others in an office that he wanted to "rape" her. It has also emerged that Amanda Blanc, who chaired Welsh rugby's professional board between 2019 and 2021, warned the WRU it had a problem yet seemingly little or no action has been taken to address these concerns. Steve Phillips has been the Chief Executive Officer of the WRU since September 2020.
Responding to the allegations, Heledd Fychan MS, Plaid Cymru's Sports spokesperson said:
"The appalling claims of sexism and misogyny that have come to light raise grave questions for the WRU.
"Their abject failure to acknowledge the seriousness of these allegations show that there has been, and continues to be, a leadership vacuum at the Union.
"As CEO, Steve Phillips has been in a position to deal with these issues which will have been known to him for some time, but it's taken a TV programme to get the WRU to address these issues publicly. As a result, the current CEO should resign, and new leadership brought in to bring about the changes that are desperately needed.
"Until the issues are dealt with and there is a change of culture, the Welsh Government should consider whether it is appropriate for the WRU to receive any further public money. We certainly can't encourage women into an environment where they face this kind of misogyny."
Brooke Webb published this page in News 2023-01-25 18:02:43 +0000

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Aurora Station, The Luxury Space Hotel Slated to Open by 2022
By Team TeekTalks On Apr 9, 2018
For many years space tourism has been promoted as "coming soon", till now the actual opportunity to go into space was a very rare private trip to ISS (International Space a Station) for a whopping price of US $20 million.
A private US-based space technology startup, Orion Span announced the first luxury space hotel, Aurora Station and promised ambitious 2022 opening date at the space 2.0 summit in California.
This space hotel will host 6 people at a time which includes 2 crew members and 4 tourists (staying in 2-person suites) for a 12 day trip of space travel. Before the space adventure commences, the tourist's will have a 3-month training program to get them astronaut-ready. Historically it takes 24-months training to prepare travelers to visit a space station. This is obviously not a budget holiday as it costs US$9.5 million per person to visit the space hotel. Refundable deposits of $80,000 can now be made online.
The super-rich travelers will fly at a height of 200 miles (322 km) as the Aurora Station module is planned to get launched into a low-Earth orbit. This orbital altitude is a bit lower the than the current ISS (International Space a Station) position which is 254 miles ( 408km) above the earth. Aurora Station is not the first operation to offer rides into space. In 2001, Denis Tito took the first ever space tourism flight, visited ISS for US $20 million.
Elon Musk ( SpaceX founder) said that his company planned to send two private tourists on a trip around the moon. Jeff Bezos (Amazon) and Richard Branson (Virgin) aim to give short rides, about 60miles up to the tourists. Branson signed up few celebrities to take the $2,50,000 ride which includes Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Katy Perry.
Orion Span CEO and founder, Frank Bunger said, "We want to get people into space because it's the final frontier for our civilization", "Our goal is to make space accessible to all, upon launch, Aurora Station goes into service immediately, bringing travelers into space quickly and at a lower price point than ever seen before." and further added "Our architecture is such that we can easily add capacity, enabling us to grow with market demand like a city growing skyward on Earth."
Aurora StationFrank BungerInternational Space StationOrion SpanSpace summit 2.0Space Tourism
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