...Enceladus Research Paper Enceladus, the sixth largest of more than 62 moons that orbit Saturn, however of the 62 Enceladus is one of the most prominent and most varied moons to cycle the planet. Unlike most moons Enceladus is a very bright body, reflecting almost 100 percent of the light that that strikes its surface (making it one of the brightest objects in the solar system). With that being said, it still cannot be seen with the naked eye and must be viewed from a rather large telescope. This is due to the fact that it is small in comparison to the planet itself and that it can easily be outshined by the rings it resides in. Enceladus was first observed by William Herschel on August 28, 1789 when turned his 1.2 meter telescope to the ringed planet Saturn. Herschel managed to avoid a large amount of the glare from the rings and get a much clearer view of Enceladus by observing it during Saturn’s equinox (Redd, 2013. "Enceladus: Saturns Tiny, Shiny Moon "). Herschel initially named the moon “Saturn II” which stuck with it until 1847 when William Herschel’s son, John Herschel, published a report which suggested that the moons be named after the various titans from Greek mythology (seeing as they were orbiting Saturn or Cronus and the children of Cronus where the titans in Greek myth) (Blunck, Solar system moons discovery and mythology, 2010). According to Greek mythology Enceladus was the primary adversary of Athena in the battle between the titans and the gods and at some...
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...researchers stated that the comets crash into the ground, which create shockwaves that create amino acids. The scientists figured this out by using a special gun that replicates the crash of a comet. This article is related to science/biology because it helps us understand how life first formed on Earth. I think this discovery will benefit everyone around the world equally because a common question usually asked is how the world was created in a scientific sense. Scientists will be very happy with this information because it would help them keep researching for ideas to satisfy peoples questions related to this topic. Sep. 15, 2013 — Scientists have discovered a 'cosmic factory' for producing the building blocks of life, amino acids, in research published today in the journal Nature Geoscience. The team from Imperial College London, the University of Kent and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory discovered that when icy comets collide into a planet, amino acids can be produced. These essential building blocks are also produced if a rocky meteorite crashes into a planet with an icy surface. The researchers suggest that this process provides another piece to the puzzle of how...
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...EARTH PERSPECTIVES The biological and geological future of the Earth can be extrapolated based upon the estimated effects of several long-term influences. These include the chemistry at the Earth's surface, the rate of cooling of the planet's interior, the gravitational interactions with other objects in the Solar System, and a steady increase in the Sun's luminosity. An uncertain factor in this extrapolation is the ongoing influence of technology introduced by humans, such as geoengineering, which could cause significant changes to the planet. The current biotic crisis is being caused by technology and the effects may last for up to five million years. In turn, technology may result in the extinction of humanity, leaving the planet to gradually return to a slower evolutionary pace resulting solely from long-term natural processes. Hawking: How Humankind Will Survive the Future Listen, people of Earth: Everything's going to be fine. All we have to do is survive another century or two without self-destructing as a species. Then we'll get off this rock, spread throughout space, and everything will be all right. If this is not your idea of "optimism," then you are not Stephen Hawking. The esteemed physicist garnered headlines, and some eye-rolls, after telling Big Think last week that humanity needs to leave the Earth in the future or face extinction. As The Atlantic noted: He's not knocking climate scientists' attempts to figure things out on Earth-he's just thinking long...
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