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Tuesday, December 13, 2022
2022.1213.0004...
If you have a spare 10 minutes, this is entertaining...
To help explain that last giant creature in the video above...
Interesting illustration. In case it's not clear, "mya" means "million years ago". So, many of these critters have long passed from the scene.
The main problem posed by the hypothetical giant "blooper" is the same one posed by any giant animal -- what would it eat? If bloopers exist (remember, there would need to be a breeding population, not just one individual), they must live deep in the ocean -- if they ever came to the surface, we'd have seen them. There's probably just not enough organic material down there to sustain creatures so huge.
(This is one of the objections to the Loch Ness Monster, too. The lake is too small to contain enough fish or whatever to support a breeding population of animals that large.)
Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, is known to have a liquid-water ocean so deep that its volume is far greater than all of Earth's oceans combined. Unfortunately it's covered with a layer of ice several miles thick, but it's considered one of the best possibilities in our solar system for harboring alien life. I've seen an article that argued that if animal life has evolved in Enceladus's ocean, the animals are likely far larger than anything that has ever existed on Earth, although I forget what the reasoning was.
Enceladus is an interesting place. Fairly often, jets of water vapor are ejected outward through the ice. There are tentative plans to someday keep a space probe onsite orbiting Enceladus, and fly it through these water-vapor plumes when they occur, to analyze them for the presence of organic compounds which could confirm the existence of life in the ocean there. We already know that the ocean is rich in trace minerals necessary for the development of life as we know it, and there's strong evidence that underneath the ocean Enceladus is very geologically active -- with thermal vents constantly discharging molten lava upward into the ocean, which would keep the lower reaches of it fairly warm despite how far away the Sun is. (Stresses on Enceladus from Saturn's gravity generate the energy which causes this.) I've also heard of suggestions that we could actually send a lander which would land there and send a burrowing probe down through the ice to explore the ocean and report back, but this would really be pushing our technology to the utmost limits of its capabilities.
People tend to forget that life on Earth emerged in the oceans and emerged onto the land relatively late. An ocean "world" like Enceladus (it's tiny, only three hundred miles in diameter) may be a better prospect for discovering life than a desert world like Mars.
That first video is very neat to see. I have heard of most of those, except the last...the Bloop. Never heard of it. For not being a swimmer, the underwater kingdom sure does fascinate me.
7 comments:
Very interesting!
I wonder why i want it to be a monstrous sea creature?
Interesting illustration. In case it's not clear, "mya" means "million years ago". So, many of these critters have long passed from the scene.
The main problem posed by the hypothetical giant "blooper" is the same one posed by any giant animal -- what would it eat? If bloopers exist (remember, there would need to be a breeding population, not just one individual), they must live deep in the ocean -- if they ever came to the surface, we'd have seen them. There's probably just not enough organic material down there to sustain creatures so huge.
(This is one of the objections to the Loch Ness Monster, too. The lake is too small to contain enough fish or whatever to support a breeding population of animals that large.)
Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, is known to have a liquid-water ocean so deep that its volume is far greater than all of Earth's oceans combined. Unfortunately it's covered with a layer of ice several miles thick, but it's considered one of the best possibilities in our solar system for harboring alien life. I've seen an article that argued that if animal life has evolved in Enceladus's ocean, the animals are likely far larger than anything that has ever existed on Earth, although I forget what the reasoning was.
Infidel - What you said about Enceladus is VERY interesting!
Bloop - Gwyneth Paltrow when she farts.
Enceladus is an interesting place. Fairly often, jets of water vapor are ejected outward through the ice. There are tentative plans to someday keep a space probe onsite orbiting Enceladus, and fly it through these water-vapor plumes when they occur, to analyze them for the presence of organic compounds which could confirm the existence of life in the ocean there. We already know that the ocean is rich in trace minerals necessary for the development of life as we know it, and there's strong evidence that underneath the ocean Enceladus is very geologically active -- with thermal vents constantly discharging molten lava upward into the ocean, which would keep the lower reaches of it fairly warm despite how far away the Sun is. (Stresses on Enceladus from Saturn's gravity generate the energy which causes this.) I've also heard of suggestions that we could actually send a lander which would land there and send a burrowing probe down through the ice to explore the ocean and report back, but this would really be pushing our technology to the utmost limits of its capabilities.
People tend to forget that life on Earth emerged in the oceans and emerged onto the land relatively late. An ocean "world" like Enceladus (it's tiny, only three hundred miles in diameter) may be a better prospect for discovering life than a desert world like Mars.
That first video is very neat to see. I have heard of most of those, except the last...the Bloop. Never heard of it. For not being a swimmer, the underwater kingdom sure does fascinate me.
Infidel - Thank you for all that additional information!
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