Pluto is becoming more and more interestting

[VaPaL]

Pluto may have a liquid ocean:

http://www.space.com/33256-pluto-may-harbor-liquid-ocean.html

If this confirms to be true, what it implies for the search of life? A body that far away with liquid water opens a lot of new possibilities. The habitable zone could become irrelevant? Even here on earth there are life forms that live completely deprived of sun light, just provide a source of heat and food and they are good to go.

[goncaloeaguiar]

I like how everybody freaks out when they hear "Liquid ocean". Just because there is water in liquid state, doesn't mean the right conditions for life are met. We have to start thinking about life as the concept and not how we see it on earth.

[VaPaL]

Yes I know, but if we can't even decide what a virus is, imagine a alien life that it's too much different from ours? We NEED to start by what we know, then we go to something more abstract. I saw documentaries only about what life is, and it didn't reach conclusion...

Either way, life is just one thing, I bet no one thought that could be water in liquid form on Pluto, this alone is a great thing, makes Pluto a less boring place. Pluto also has an atmosphere (http://www.space.com/18564-pluto-atmosphere.html).

The life part was just to say, if even Pluto have condition do have life, life itself is more commom than we thought, every day life seems more and more commom. That's the amazing thing, and talking only about life as we know.

[Robotengineer]

Aren't all oceans liquid? Isn't it like saying that Pluto has a gaseous atmosphere? Or solid terrain? 

[VaPaL]

Yeah, I think so, let's just say ocean now 

[cubinator]

1 hour ago, Robotengineer said:

Aren't all oceans liquid? Isn't it like saying that Pluto has a gaseous atmosphere? Or solid terrain? 

BREAKING NEWS: Solid surface discovered under Earth's ocean, cliff-diver critically injured.

[Motokid600]

3 hours ago, goncaloeaguiar said:

I like how everybody freaks out when they hear "Liquid ocean". Just because there is water in liquid state, doesn't mean the right conditions for life are met. We have to start thinking about life as the concept and not how we see it on earth.

Indeed. I suppose the general thought is that water=heat/pressure which chances have it is a good place to look for life. However if we find out first on Pluto as opposed to Europa something is very wrong... Yay cool liquid ocean on Pluto see ya when I'm 80, can we go to Europa now?

[Laie]

Large amounts of liquid water on Pluto? Inconceivable when I grew up, and IIRC still inconceivable two years ago.

[Bill Phil]

3 hours ago, goncaloeaguiar said:

I like how everybody freaks out when they hear "Liquid ocean". Just because there is water in liquid state, doesn't mean the right conditions for life are met. We have to start thinking about life as the concept and not how we see it on earth.

Liquid water is necessary for some of the most complex reactions possible at certain temperatures. It's a good sign, and it's the outer system, so there's likely a higher concentration of volatiles.

[Robotengineer]

In order for this water to be liquid, the primary energy source would have to be tidal heating from Charon, would it not?

[insert_name]

1 hour ago, Robotengineer said:

In order for this water to be liquid, the primary energy source would have to be tidal heating from Charon, would it not?

Wonder if Charon has an ocean as well 

[Bill Phil]

1 hour ago, Robotengineer said:

In order for this water to be liquid, the primary energy source would have to be tidal heating from Charon, would it not?

It's likely caused by the weird binary system and the sun itself.

[kerbiloid]

Arctic and Antarctic oceans are just an Eden garden in comparison with Titan/Pluto ones.

[Mitchz95]

I doubt it's Charon; they've been locked together for so long there shouldn't be any tidal heating at all.

[Findthepin1]

On 24 June, 2016 at 1:35 AM, kerbiloid said:

Arctic and Antarctic oceans are just an Eden garden...

They are quite biodiverse, even for Earth

On 24 June, 2016 at 1:35 AM, kerbiloid said:

...in comparison with Titan/Pluto ones.

And Europa. And Ganymede. And Enceladus. And Triton? And Callisto? And Pluto?

Edited June 26, 2016 by Findthepin1

[cubinator]

10 minutes ago, Findthepin1 said:

And Europa. And Ganymede. And Enceladus. And Triton? And Callisto? And Pluto?

Subsurface oceans seem to be *really* common...if life develops there, it would explain why we haven't seen signs of intelligent life yet; they're all buried under miles of ice and don't even know about space!

[magnemoe]

44 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Subsurface oceans seem to be *really* common...if life develops there, it would explain why we haven't seen signs of intelligent life yet; they're all buried under miles of ice and don't even know about space!

Yes, weird its on Pluto however, the moons around Jupiter and Saturn has tidal effects from each other and pluto is a bit small to keep much heat. 
Perhaps tides from Clarions as its orbit is unlikely to be perfect circular.  

[Alshain]

On 6/23/2016 at 4:02 PM, goncaloeaguiar said:

I like how everybody freaks out when they hear "Liquid ocean". Just because there is water in liquid state, doesn't mean the right conditions for life are met. We have to start thinking about life as the concept and not how we see it on earth.

It doesn't even say water.  Could be liquid hydrogen for as much we know.  Wouldn't it be ironic if there was a mercury ocean on Pluto?

Edited June 26, 2016 by Alshain

[cubinator]

6 minutes ago, Alshain said:

Wouldn't it be ironic if there was a mercury ocean on Pluto?

Yes, but that would make it all the more strange, because mercury is really heavy and I'd be really surprised to see the stuff way out there. It's probably liquid nitrogen, if I were to bet on it. That doesn't need as much heating as water, and there's mountains of the stuff on Pluto.

[kerbiloid]

3 hours ago, Findthepin1 said:

And Europa. And Ganymede. And Enceladus. And Triton? And Callisto?

 

2 hours ago, cubinator said:

Subsurface oceans seem to be *really* common...if life develops there, it would explain why we haven't seen signs of intelligent life yet; they're all buried under miles of ice and don't even know about space!

Earth oceanic life is mostly based on photosynthesis in the very upper layer of it. And very thin — dozens of meters if not even less.
Organics appears on the surface then sinks down to the bottom. At the bottom lives another organics, which is eating the sunk one and make the silt which they live in.
Between them is a useless depth,
The famous chemosynthesis is just a puny addition to this feast of life. And it appears not along all over the bottom, but in hot spots only — the underwater volcanos.

A real life on the Earth had appeared only when the inferior chemosynthetical sub-bacteries reached the oceanic surface on the continental shelfs.
There they could be resting relaxed and take a light bath in the flows of energy free of charge.

Obviously, the Earth ocean organics is, loosely speaking, a superposition of three exponents:

• With maximum at surface, decreasing downwards — photosynthetics production and they, who catch it while it's sinking down; The richest one. Mostly concentrated in a half kilometer from surface.
• With maximum at bottom, decreasing upwards — chemosynthetics production; The poorest one. Very close to the bottom.
• With maximum at bottom, decreasing upwards — they, who live at the bottom and eat any of the previous two, not climbing too high.

Being summarized, those 3 exponents give more-or-less continous distribution of the organic material.

On the oceanic shelf the bottom and surface are so close to each other that they mix together and compose a symphonic orchestra, which mixes at once all kinds of the organics and energy transformation,
This synergy gives an outstanding production and diversification of life. This orchestra is constinuously orchestrated at once by the day/night, summer/winter and tidal cycles.
So, these variety, fertility and predictable regulated compulsion — are forcing the life to evolve and give it giant abilities to do this. All terrestrial life above the simplest protozoans appeared here.

Obviously, the subsurface oceans have no photosynthesis. They're absolutely dark places. So, they can't show even comparable organics production. No first (and the main) exponent.
The only organics there is being chemosynthesised on the very bottom. The puny and miserable second exponent.
The third exponent has to be limited by the second one, with chemosynthetic food only. So, it is same puny and miserable as the second one.

So, any subsurface ocean life has to concentrate in dozens meters from the bottom.
It gains nothing climbing high, as there is no sky above them, just a dark cold ceiling.
The upper — the worse.

And as the chemosynthesis runs only in volcanic hot spots, these hot spots amount depends on total bottom area.
You can easily calculate that Europa/Enceladus/etc oceanic bottom should be ~1% of the terrestrial ocean area. Plutonic and Hanymedic ones ~ 10%.
As not every hot spot is a cradle of life, they have 100 times less attempts to try a chance of life creation.
But even if a miracle happens, and a life appears there, it should be so limited in abundance and diversity that you could hardly distinguish this bacterial trash from other dirty spots.

Edited June 26, 2016 by kerbiloid

[cubinator]

@kerbiloid I see your point; chemosynthetic life has a harder time developing than photosynthetic life because they have a much narrower space in which they can live. I agree with this, but I think that could be cancelled out by the fact that there seems to be so many more places with subsurface oceans than there are with surface oceans. For water oceans on the surface we have: Earth, Mars (former). For subsurface oceans we have: Enceladus, Europa, Ganymede, and a whole lot more unconfirmed, but suspected ones, including Pluto. If this holds true to other star systems (as I believe it should, as there is much more space far away from a star than close to it) we would find life most commonly in those worlds, simply because there are so many more of them than there are terras, even though terras would be more friendly to the development of life.

[VaPaL]

10 hours ago, Alshain said:

It doesn't even say water.  Could be liquid hydrogen for as much we know.  Wouldn't it be ironic if there was a mercury ocean on Pluto?

Quote

"That's amazing to me," Hammond said. "The possibility that you could have vast liquid water ocean habitats so far from the sun on Pluto — and that the same could also be possible on other Kuiper Belt objects as well — is absolutely incredible." 

There are two other instances the water appears on the article. Anyway, my first thoughts were the same, and I'm still unsure if it is really water, though it would be more amazing.

[kerbiloid]

26 minutes ago, cubinator said:

to be so many more places with subsurface oceans than there are with surface oceans

Vice versa.
In the Earth ocean (4 km deep) we have two productive planes rich with organics: the surface and the bottom. (And the bottom is rich mostly with the organics from surface).
The water volume in between matters nothing, it doesn't produce organics, it's just an abyss through which the organics sinks.

In the subsurface oceans (100 km) we have only one productive plane - the bottom. Organics doesn't shower from surface, it just rises for several dozens? (hundreds?) meters and sinks back.
That means, all its eaters also live near the very bottom. Just because no manna falls down from the surface. The higher they climb - the less to eat. That's the key difference from the Earty ocean.

So, not the volume matters, but the area. While any ocean is 3d, its depth dimension means nothing, it's a useless hollow. Life is 2d. Life is just a mildew film covering available surface.
And the area of Europa/Enceladus/Pluto ocean is 10-100 times less than of Earth ocean.

P.S.
Btw, the terrestrial life had burst when the true plants appeared (not algae). And these plants were the synergy of the bottom (roots consuming the silt) and surface (photosynthetic leaves).
These plants transformed the coastal shallows into bogs, then into ground, filling them with their remains.
And they were the key factor forcing the primitive creatures to make their efforts in the ground colonization, which then gave the burst-like life diversity.
Nothing alike can be happen with the subsurface life.

Edited June 26, 2016 by kerbiloid

[VaPaL]

@kerbiloid Yeah, I agree that it seems, by what we know about it, that life on these oceans would be very simple and not much diverse, but that's not the point, life is life. It doesn't need to be diverse, but if it does it would be even more amezing.

[cubinator]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

Snip

Of course life in a subsurface ocean will have no reason to go to the ceiling. That's why we wouldn't see it unless we drilled into the ocean and got to the bottom. My point is that if worlds with subsurface oceans are more common than earthlike worlds, and both have the resources for life, life will exist on more ice worlds with subsurface oceans than earthlike worlds with surface water.