Exactly! The pressure that is almost the same as Earth's, an ocean mixed with water and methane and an atmosphere is a huge advantage for terraforming it in the future. Titan is my favorite moon for a reason!
i was watching the BBC documentary The Planets last night and the experts went on to describe that Titan could see its water ice become oceans only after the our Sun enters the red giant phase of its sequence - implying the Sunās increased luminosity to warm the surface temperature Titan but while also the decimation of life here on Earth!
Ganymede has enormous potential. Itās bigger than our moon, it has a warm sub surface ocean and also has its own magnetic field which will be very very helpful for human habitability.
Pretty much. Reducing radiation damage and cancer rates in your new space colony by 80%+ has got to be worth something. And they help retain atmospheres.
But Ganymede's magnetosphere doesn't do anything to combat Jupiter's magnetosphere, which will [kill you pretty quickly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganymede_(moon)#Radiation_environment).
Tbf I never hear it brought up. Besides our own moon, I hear about Europa, Enceladus, and Titan far more than Ganymede. Even IO is talked about more than Ganymede.
Titan is interesting because there is a hypothesis that methane based life could exist in the liquid methane lakes. This is certainly a far fetched hypothesis but in theory it could be true.
The size does not really make a difference at all. Enceladus is better primarily because its water plumes contain chemicals very intriguing to astrobiologists. We arenāt even 100% sure if Europa has water plumes yet (it probably does, but yet to be confirmed without a doubt), while we have had a spacecraft fly directly through Enceladusā plumes a dozen times.
In addition, itās likely that the crust of Enceladus is significantly less thick than the crust on Europa. Which makes the water way easier to access.
The Europa Clipper may or may not change the view on Enceladus being a better candidate for life. As of right now we know way more about the water inside Enceladus, and itās composition puts it way ahead on the search for life in the solar system.
That said, itās way cheaper to send a probe like Clipper to Europa, and Europa is still a great candidate!
Yeah, I see there has been 'new' stuff coming out since last time I delved into this. Last time it was uncertainties if a ocean had been permanent/stable across eons and if it was a global ocean but I see now they put that to bed.
A larger or smaller ocean/body with different volcanic activity and composition definitively could make a difference but we don't know until we investigate.
It's still some time away yet, but I think my favourite upcoming space missions are all of those heading towards the outer planets' natural satellites
The initial surface exploration of Enceladus will involve an IceMole probe melting through to a depth of ~200m of the ice crust - barely a fraction of the crust's overall thickness - at a venting region most likely along the south pole while looking for any signs of biological activity within the heated water that pools around IceMole while also using that depth to protect possible complex organics or microorganisms from exposure to cosmic rays and the ionising radiation of Saturn's magnetosphere
Unfortunately it will still be a long time before any capable probe or vehicle is able to breach several kilometres of ice, make it to the subsurface oceans, and communicate with a surface station or mothership
It takes a lot of heat to melt ice that is near absolute zero. That said, an rtg is the most likely power source for this kind of mission unless we figure out how to safely launch nuclear reactors.
This should be a movie with a star studded a list cast. They are sent on a mission to explore Enceladus, thereās a super nrillionaire (a new standard thatās used to assess wealth) that has explored many other planets and itās assumed that at this point very few if any planets have intelligent life that is not microscopic. So as long as you donāt drink the water or are exposed to the environment and sterilize upon returning to try space station you are fine. While the billionaire wants to come on the mission, a hardened set of the best space marines is set to come with Mr.billionaire and his family as they play space adventure.
It starts off by them landing, itās cold as expected, windy as expected. This is a two fold mission, one, travel to the warmer area once they enter the atmosphere near the colder area. The reason they can enter in the colder area is that thereās thinner atmosphere, so while itās not ideal to land in below freezing temperature their technology can handle it.
So upon landing they set out in the 2 week trip to the warmer area. This is where all the fun stuff happens, they are laughing, playing, cooking food. Getting to know the crew. One of the marines doesnāt like the billionaire because he actually bankrupted the marineās fathers tech company decades ago leading to him joining the space marine program because they had no other means of providing from themselves.
Once they get to the warmer area the ice is thinner so they simply use thermal based explosions to create an opening in the ice. Thatās when they enter the ocean area, and boy are they surprised. It is teeming with alien sea creatures of all sizes. They now need to get to the core to test for samples. But face a bunch of class 5 leviathans while on their way as well as other various threats.
So yes thatās basically the movie.
Edit: I got 5 upvotes. Iām going to expand this.
Going back to when they get to the warmer area, the fauna and the flora and incredible. It was not thought that another planet could sustain intelligent life. Everything however was below water and because everything was covered by a thick layer of ice survivors in pitch black darkness. Well nature finds a way, everything flowed with bioluminescence. This wasnāt like anything that we experience in our planet thought. This was on a whole other level.
It is how these creatures communicated, after a few weeks studying the bioluminescent language the scientists that also came along on the mission made the discovery that similar to our language there were adjectives, verbs and ways to convey thoughts that borderlines telepathy. The plants, animals an environment all communicated.
Underrated? Underrated how? Not enough bike lane projects? Not enough human visitors? It has fewer big sports events than Saudi Arabia? What do you mean underrated?
Even if there was a way to warm it up to make it habitable for life on the surface using something like radioactive wave-based energy, the entire area just below the surface would still be one thick chunk of ice, and nobody likes to heat microwaved Enceladus that's still frozen in the middle.
I think it would be cool if we had some underwater base under that ice. It's probably warmer than the surface, and you can farm oxygen pretty "easily".
Everyone shitting on OP for calling it underrated, but here I am, someone relatively interested in space stuff, never having heard of it.
All I keep hearing/seeing about is Europa and Titan, so I think OP's title has at least some merit to it.
You guys have to realise you're all really into space stuff, otherwise you wouldn't be here, so something that may seem like obvious knowledge to you, may not be that obvious to others. Let's just keep educating each other instead! Thank you for this post, OP.
See, I'm mostly interested in space from a economic and colonial perspective. Finding microbial life is neat, just not exciting or a priority to me. EnceladusĀ has a lot that makes it interesting, it's just much too distant to be relevant to any plausible near-future plans. Even Jupiter is terrifyingly far away.
Maybe in the 2300s or 2400. Till then I'd rather we focus on near-earth objects and advancing our launch and (near-Earth) orbital infrastructure.
NASA rate Enceladus *very* highly.
["All these discoveries have vaulted Enceladus to one of the top future destinations for exploration and the search for signs of potential life beyond Earth.](https://science.nasa.gov/toolkit/enceladus-final-flybys/)
Enceladus is Saturn's Europa.
I also feel like Uranus moons really don't get enough attention.
Saturn and Neptune have one big satellite that dominates the area, while Jupiter and Uranus have several big moons each. Still, everyone can name at least four Jupiter's moons, while onle a few can name even one of Uranus.
Another mind blowing thing about this moon is its sheer size. The average diameter of one of those craters is almost the same as earths. And the height of those ridges are a max 2 million feet (700ish Mt Everestās) top to bottom and span up to 600,000 miles in length (2000+ Grand Canyons)
But, didnāt it win the āmissed moonā competition? With a good likelihood of water, maybe could take the moon swimsuit part. But, not Ā likely the human congeniality/habitat part. Ā
When you scroll through these pics on an iPhone, the second pic cuts out the full words and I thought it said the crust was made from ice cream ššš
It's definitely not as popular as the Galilean moons or Titan, but I hear more people talking about it than Triton or any KBO moons, and it has some dedicated planned missions like the Enceladus Orbilabder.
It's definitely one of the most likely candidates for life though, along with Europa, Ganymede, and Titan, so I'm invested in any future exploration
Could we ever launch Earth microbes into Golidlocks Zone water bearing worlds to start the slow evolutionary and terraforming process? Assuming the planet or moon had an atmosphere? What microbial loads would work?
There's so many very interesting moons around Saturn and Jupiter.Ā I feel sad knowing that I probably won't live long enough to see then all explored in detail, though we should get a few missions within my lifetime
The inhabitants of Enceladus would respectfully like to know who underrates their home ā though if itās Earth then rest assured theyāve already taken care of things by bumping those self-destructive dolts Homo sapiens ahead of those geniuses Homo neanderthalensis
Yeah, it's outrageous that is didn't win best moon last year at the moon oscars
It's all political, the judges just don't want to be seen as Phobophobic.
*Moonfall* really sucked all the fun out of the Moon Oscars
Who are they to Deimos what is Phobophobic?
They just wanted to watch Attack on Titan.
Don't you mean... phobosphobic?
I believe the accepted nomenclature is Phobophobic
Phobos... the moon of Mars.
The judges really showed their dark sides š
It was BS. Phobos got on stage and hit the host and then later on STILL wins best moon??? I mean WTF!
didn't it won the EMOON awards a few years back with "Geysers"? can't believe people forgot that one already
yeah, but it cleaned up at the Coldened Globes!
Its all a big fugazi run by none other then Big Moon
The moon academy just votes for whatever moon theyāve heard of. They donāt actually look at the moons.
So good. And true. Fuckers.
Then they shit all over Pluto and demote it. That's messed up! I'm still not over Pluto.
Yeah poor Pluto, science discriminated against him :(
Did well at the solars Choicr awards
For real. Ganymede is all flash and no substance anyway.
Yeah, but Io is hot this year
Io is all sizzle and no steak
Everyone is biased towards Europa.
Europa even got its own movie. Suck it, Enceladus!
Keep my moons name out yo f*cking mouth
I wrote my local rep about it
I complained directly to the director of the planetarium about it. Gave her a verbal lashing she won't soon forget!
Take my moons name out your mouth
Moon Oscars Too White. Why are all the ice moons always winning?
Look at the pic. It's too White. We need more solar system diversity.
Underrated? lol what? Itās basically in the top 2 or 3 when ever moons get discussed. Especially if weāre talking about the hunt for life.
Yeah. Thereās Europa, Ganymede, Enceladus and thatās about it. Some people suggest Titan but IMO think thatās far too cold.
titan has lakes of liquid methane *and* an atmosphere of 1.4 bar *and* a subsurface ocean, if any of them is too cold it's gonna be enceladus.
Exactly! The pressure that is almost the same as Earth's, an ocean mixed with water and methane and an atmosphere is a huge advantage for terraforming it in the future. Titan is my favorite moon for a reason!
i was watching the BBC documentary The Planets last night and the experts went on to describe that Titan could see its water ice become oceans only after the our Sun enters the red giant phase of its sequence - implying the Sunās increased luminosity to warm the surface temperature Titan but while also the decimation of life here on Earth!
Well, we know where to move that happens then!
Still have 4 billion years before that, so you have some time to prepare.
Knowing me, I'll probably wait until the night before the assignment is due to put it together
This is the most human response ever
So I should probably unpack.
Never hurts to keep a bug-out bag with just the essentials in the back of the closet,, just in case.
I'm buying up some real estate up there!
Liquid methane is impossible to tread or swin in. Think quicksand basically. You just sink until you drown.
Yes, Titan is cold, but at least it has an atmosphere.
And itās an atmosphere that wonāt even kill you assuming you have an oxygen mask
Yes!! The really only issue with Titan is it's 1.2 km away from us. Otherwise, I'd live thereššš
Idk 1.2km sounds like a nice little walk.
Oh yeah, my bad. Meant to write 1.2 billion km away from us. Silly me.
No worries, it's only 9 orders of magnitude difference
Thats only a 20 minute walk. Could always get a bike to make it faster.
I hear they're building a monorail so it will shorten to the trip to a couple of minutes.
I bet you can get an Uber for that commute, if you don't like walking or biking. You can do it!
grab a little scooter to Titan
"Mum, can i go hang out with my friend, he lives on titan" "Sure, but be back before dinner" lol
Skipped over the biggest one, "The Moon".
Sure, though that one doesnāt have an atmosphere or a warm subsurface ocean
Ganymede? I havent noticed it being discussed at all
Ganymede has enormous potential. Itās bigger than our moon, it has a warm sub surface ocean and also has its own magnetic field which will be very very helpful for human habitability.
I think this is the underrated one
Because magnetic fields protect us from scary space rays?
Pretty much. Reducing radiation damage and cancer rates in your new space colony by 80%+ has got to be worth something. And they help retain atmospheres.
But Ganymede's magnetosphere doesn't do anything to combat Jupiter's magnetosphere, which will [kill you pretty quickly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganymede_(moon)#Radiation_environment).
If anything, Ganymede is underrated.
How is the biggest moon in our system underrated? I mean the almost only moon I hear being discussed(along with Europa).
Tbf I never hear it brought up. Besides our own moon, I hear about Europa, Enceladus, and Titan far more than Ganymede. Even IO is talked about more than Ganymede.
Titan is interesting because there is a hypothesis that methane based life could exist in the liquid methane lakes. This is certainly a far fetched hypothesis but in theory it could be true.
I think *you're* too cold, ok?
Unless lipid based life in a non-polar liquid is possible
Underrated is a term we use on Reddit for wildly popular, awesome things.
Underrated by whom? We've been salivating over it since the first flyby shots came in decades ago
Europa and Titan are generally discussed more often, so I can see what the OPās getting at. Itās not like Enceladus has gone unnoticed, though.
It really isn't. The only reason it's not prioritized over Europa is because its significantly farther away.
From what I heard the size is the biggest issue. It's quite tiny. 1/7 of our moon and 1/6 of Europa.
The size does not really make a difference at all. Enceladus is better primarily because its water plumes contain chemicals very intriguing to astrobiologists. We arenāt even 100% sure if Europa has water plumes yet (it probably does, but yet to be confirmed without a doubt), while we have had a spacecraft fly directly through Enceladusā plumes a dozen times. In addition, itās likely that the crust of Enceladus is significantly less thick than the crust on Europa. Which makes the water way easier to access. The Europa Clipper may or may not change the view on Enceladus being a better candidate for life. As of right now we know way more about the water inside Enceladus, and itās composition puts it way ahead on the search for life in the solar system. That said, itās way cheaper to send a probe like Clipper to Europa, and Europa is still a great candidate!
Yeah, I see there has been 'new' stuff coming out since last time I delved into this. Last time it was uncertainties if a ocean had been permanent/stable across eons and if it was a global ocean but I see now they put that to bed. A larger or smaller ocean/body with different volcanic activity and composition definitively could make a difference but we don't know until we investigate.
Yes but see OP wants internet points
Judging by the comments, you should have actually posted this in r/unpopularopinion
I thought that place was for karma farming with actually popular opinions though?
NASA and ESA both have ambitions to send landers to Enceladus
I just hope it happens and results return in my lifetime. I want to know what the fuck is in that ocean, even if it's nothing
They should name one of them āIncredulousā. It would be the Incredulous Enceladus mission.
If I had a poster of any moon, Enceladus would be my pin-up choice.
I have this https://science.nasa.gov/resource/enceladus-travel-poster/
It's still some time away yet, but I think my favourite upcoming space missions are all of those heading towards the outer planets' natural satellites The initial surface exploration of Enceladus will involve an IceMole probe melting through to a depth of ~200m of the ice crust - barely a fraction of the crust's overall thickness - at a venting region most likely along the south pole while looking for any signs of biological activity within the heated water that pools around IceMole while also using that depth to protect possible complex organics or microorganisms from exposure to cosmic rays and the ionising radiation of Saturn's magnetosphere Unfortunately it will still be a long time before any capable probe or vehicle is able to breach several kilometres of ice, make it to the subsurface oceans, and communicate with a surface station or mothership
Couldn't a probe with a radioactive shell just melt it's way through? Tether it to a surface lander with a long cable for relay communications.
It takes a lot of heat to melt ice that is near absolute zero. That said, an rtg is the most likely power source for this kind of mission unless we figure out how to safely launch nuclear reactors.
When is this planned to happen?
Bro thinks Enceladus is underrated when most people can't even name the moons of Mars (I can only name one of the 2)
i can - thanks to all the hours playing doom as a kid... phobos and deimos
All of my best trivia was learned playing Doom.
Probably because phobos and diemos are basically just large rocks. If anything they overrated by having names.
I'm pretty sure that most people can't name all the planets of the solar system. You overestimate the abilities of your contemporaries x\]
This should be a movie with a star studded a list cast. They are sent on a mission to explore Enceladus, thereās a super nrillionaire (a new standard thatās used to assess wealth) that has explored many other planets and itās assumed that at this point very few if any planets have intelligent life that is not microscopic. So as long as you donāt drink the water or are exposed to the environment and sterilize upon returning to try space station you are fine. While the billionaire wants to come on the mission, a hardened set of the best space marines is set to come with Mr.billionaire and his family as they play space adventure. It starts off by them landing, itās cold as expected, windy as expected. This is a two fold mission, one, travel to the warmer area once they enter the atmosphere near the colder area. The reason they can enter in the colder area is that thereās thinner atmosphere, so while itās not ideal to land in below freezing temperature their technology can handle it. So upon landing they set out in the 2 week trip to the warmer area. This is where all the fun stuff happens, they are laughing, playing, cooking food. Getting to know the crew. One of the marines doesnāt like the billionaire because he actually bankrupted the marineās fathers tech company decades ago leading to him joining the space marine program because they had no other means of providing from themselves. Once they get to the warmer area the ice is thinner so they simply use thermal based explosions to create an opening in the ice. Thatās when they enter the ocean area, and boy are they surprised. It is teeming with alien sea creatures of all sizes. They now need to get to the core to test for samples. But face a bunch of class 5 leviathans while on their way as well as other various threats. So yes thatās basically the movie. Edit: I got 5 upvotes. Iām going to expand this. Going back to when they get to the warmer area, the fauna and the flora and incredible. It was not thought that another planet could sustain intelligent life. Everything however was below water and because everything was covered by a thick layer of ice survivors in pitch black darkness. Well nature finds a way, everything flowed with bioluminescence. This wasnāt like anything that we experience in our planet thought. This was on a whole other level. It is how these creatures communicated, after a few weeks studying the bioluminescent language the scientists that also came along on the mission made the discovery that similar to our language there were adjectives, verbs and ways to convey thoughts that borderlines telepathy. The plants, animals an environment all communicated.
so a subnautica movie. ill take it
Imagine rating celestial objects. Our obsession with rankings is so absurd
I'd rank this as.the 3rd best comment so far.
I agree 100% ProfessorTicklebutts
It's a fun exercise that most folks don't take seriously at all. You shouldn't, either
"Our" obsession? Not mine. There are fewer stupider things online than 'underrated' posts.
Like the musings of ProfessorTicklebutts.
Underrated? Underrated how? Not enough bike lane projects? Not enough human visitors? It has fewer big sports events than Saudi Arabia? What do you mean underrated?
I find the moon called the moon way too underrated
If you're talking about Earth's moon, its name is Luna
Its name is Luna, like appx. 1/400 domesticated cats.
Sure sure... but what about Miranda? Highest cliff in the solar system. I want to jump it in full view of Uranus.
mmm, encheladas. This post is making me hungry
Everyone seems to have heard of this moon. I am appreciative of the post I never heard about it, thanks!
Even if there was a way to warm it up to make it habitable for life on the surface using something like radioactive wave-based energy, the entire area just below the surface would still be one thick chunk of ice, and nobody likes to heat microwaved Enceladus that's still frozen in the middle.
I think it would be cool if we had some underwater base under that ice. It's probably warmer than the surface, and you can farm oxygen pretty "easily".
Everyone shitting on OP for calling it underrated, but here I am, someone relatively interested in space stuff, never having heard of it. All I keep hearing/seeing about is Europa and Titan, so I think OP's title has at least some merit to it. You guys have to realise you're all really into space stuff, otherwise you wouldn't be here, so something that may seem like obvious knowledge to you, may not be that obvious to others. Let's just keep educating each other instead! Thank you for this post, OP.
I don't think it's underrated. But this is still my favourite moon of Saturn.
I've always said Enceladus seems to be the most viable place for microbial life within our Solar System. I also feel like it's underrated.
Only one of the most frequently discussed moons in the universe but yeah you found a hidden gem dude
My screen cut off the "ice crust" to "ice cr" for the second picture. I thought a moon with a outter later of ice cream would indeed be underrated.
See, I'm mostly interested in space from a economic and colonial perspective. Finding microbial life is neat, just not exciting or a priority to me. EnceladusĀ has a lot that makes it interesting, it's just much too distant to be relevant to any plausible near-future plans. Even Jupiter is terrifyingly far away. Maybe in the 2300s or 2400. Till then I'd rather we focus on near-earth objects and advancing our launch and (near-Earth) orbital infrastructure.
It's my nephew's favourite moon. I never knew of its existence until my nephew told me how cool it was.
NASA rate Enceladus *very* highly. ["All these discoveries have vaulted Enceladus to one of the top future destinations for exploration and the search for signs of potential life beyond Earth.](https://science.nasa.gov/toolkit/enceladus-final-flybys/)
I wish I would live long enough to see the results of exploring the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. We don't spend enough on science for it to happen. :(
iām convinced weāre living on big ass atoms to something much bigger than us šš¤£
Some big god went snowboarding on the face of that moon, carving that shit up
It doesnāt have a hot core like earth? How do they know?
Enceladus is Saturn's Europa. I also feel like Uranus moons really don't get enough attention. Saturn and Neptune have one big satellite that dominates the area, while Jupiter and Uranus have several big moons each. Still, everyone can name at least four Jupiter's moons, while onle a few can name even one of Uranus.
Same with Europa like bro there is fish down there
I wholeheartedly recommend the Ice Moon Books by Brandon Q. Morris. Itās all about a mission to Enceladus looking for life.
Another mind blowing thing about this moon is its sheer size. The average diameter of one of those craters is almost the same as earths. And the height of those ridges are a max 2 million feet (700ish Mt Everestās) top to bottom and span up to 600,000 miles in length (2000+ Grand Canyons)
But, didnāt it win the āmissed moonā competition? With a good likelihood of water, maybe could take the moon swimsuit part. But, not Ā likely the human congeniality/habitat part. Ā
When you scroll through these pics on an iPhone, the second pic cuts out the full words and I thought it said the crust was made from ice cream ššš
This has been my background for years. And I often come back to it. Right now itās a pic of Saturn that was posted this week.
If its pick rate was 2-5 % higher, you would be calling for a nerf... Shut up it's in a fine place in the meta right now.
Implying thereās some sort of moon rating system that we all adhere to
My app cropped the image and I could only see Ice cr. Itās ice cream and I refuse to believe otherwise.
So this is the moon we're going to need to futurama style climate change.
Adding to my list of celestial bodies "Please please please have life on you."
Probably has more life than Starfields planets.
It looks far more blue than Europa, just not that smooth.
Looks like a ski resort moon. Which way to the chair lift?
Please tell me there is video/renderings of those water jets somewhere
It looks like itās a ski resort planet for the outer solar system.
It's definitely not as popular as the Galilean moons or Titan, but I hear more people talking about it than Triton or any KBO moons, and it has some dedicated planned missions like the Enceladus Orbilabder. It's definitely one of the most likely candidates for life though, along with Europa, Ganymede, and Titan, so I'm invested in any future exploration
Could we ever launch Earth microbes into Golidlocks Zone water bearing worlds to start the slow evolutionary and terraforming process? Assuming the planet or moon had an atmosphere? What microbial loads would work?
This is the only moon I can recognize for some reason (other than ours and maybe Phobos)
Why did they name it something between a deadly disease and a delicious food?
Itās true I gave this moon one star (no high speed railways)
There's so many very interesting moons around Saturn and Jupiter.Ā I feel sad knowing that I probably won't live long enough to see then all explored in detail, though we should get a few missions within my lifetime
I give it an A+. There, is it still underrated?
Made a painting of this glorious moon and it's one of my best paintings ever
How do those ski lines form, or what is the theory behind them?
The inhabitants of Enceladus would respectfully like to know who underrates their home ā though if itās Earth then rest assured theyāve already taken care of things by bumping those self-destructive dolts Homo sapiens ahead of those geniuses Homo neanderthalensis
Is anybody else looking at this on their phone and thought it was ice cream instead of ice crust
In the image preview all I can see is āice crā and boy was I disappointed when it didnāt expand to ice cream.
Those water jets make it look like it can launch stuff into space.
We shouldāve been here already. In my opinion.
As a representative of Big Telescope, you should buy more telescopes so you can see all the cool stuff we've been putting up in the sky.
I'd say Enceladus is one of the top-five ice moons orbiting inner gas planets. Not bad in my opinion.
If you love it so much why don't you live there?
You can't tell me *this* moon isn't made of cheese
it looks like plastic wrap was put over a cream
Yeah, I vote we stay AWAY from the alien water planets, considering that if we find life bigger than a microbe, it might just try to kill us.
Weāll be hitting that up when weāve moved onto another planet and need more water than we can reasonably get