A number of news outlets are indicating that NASA will be making a "big announcement" on life in the solar system this afternoon.

Stay tuned.

Does this mean they've also found that bothersome Illudium PU-36 explosive space modulator?

I for one welcome our new insect overlords

According to Drudge: http://www.drudgereport.com/flash8na.htm

It's the discovery of liquid water on Enceladus, found by Cassini

Bob

Not sure who the anonymous poster was, but that made me chuckle. :-)

The announcement could very well be "uh, yeah, we're still alone." Good thing it's nowhere near the 1st of April yet.

Or, it could be "the Mars Rovers were taken hostage" or "the Mars Rovers are being eaten by martian bacteria."

I'm not sure we're ready for such an announcement. On the one hand, having other intelligent life in the solar system could throw a lot of religions into chaos on Earth. On the other hand, non-intelligent, bacteria-sized life could be viewed as either "dangerous to Earth" ending all Martian exploration, or NASA could be demonized for invading and killing off native life-forms on another planet or moon.

Then again, it could just be evidence that life *used to* exist elsewhere, but has since died out, which has its own implications.

Either way, I'm almost more interested in watching the reactions to the news, rather than in the news itself.

I would think that it would be the discovery of significant fossilized remains on Mars, not nanobacteria. That would be the exact thing those rovers could easily verify.

non-intelligent, bacteria-sized life could be viewed as either "dangerous to Earth" ending all Martian exploration, or NASA could be demonized for invading and killing off native life-forms on another planet or moon.

Should such bacterial life be found, expect both reactions. Often from the same quarters.

I'm not sure we're ready for such an announcement.

Why not? I think most people will work it into their belief systems without a sweat. And the few that don't, will find some way to ignore it.

The key here is that no real change needs to be made. Even if microbe level life is found on Mars or elsewhere, it doesn't require that we change anything. Now, if the Greys or the Reptilians come by and completely obselete humanity's industries (or maybe completely subjugate the human race under their military might), that would be different. We're not ready for that.

Word up is that Cassini noticed transient liquid water errupting from Enceladus.

Re the notion that the discovery of extraterresterial life may throw some religions off plumb, my Bible says nothing that would rule out life on other worlds so its discovery would not effect this Christians beliefs at all.

Brother Guy Consolmagno, a really neat fellow who's often at Chicago-area SF cons, commented at a recent one that, contrary to the belief of some, the Catholic church has no problem with the hypothesis that extraterrestrial intelligent life exists, or even that parallel universes could exist, and has held this position since sometime in the middle ages.

There should be no problms believing in non earth based life. Big small or otherwise. Its all perfectly stated in the New Testament, fundamentalists would probably say Jesus meant non-believers here. The jury is still out for me.

John 10 - 16 And I have other sheep, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.

Re religion - even if it was proven beyond a doubt to be incorrect (almost certainly impossible), it would still make sense to have religions (well, some religions, anyway). Think about what a good religion is - Game Theory for the masses. Most of the things proscribed by religion make sense and increase total happiness of society, avoid the prisoners dilema, etc. In fact, I think you can rate religions by how closely they follow Game Theory: A religion's priorities should be society happiness, personal happiness, religion happiness (which is interalated with the others because they do not occur if the religion fails, because for most of the population Game Theory is not enough).

(shrug) The major religions will either ignore (which is not necessairily the same as disbelieve or reject, though some sects may do that) or embrace such a discovery. As noted, a few have prepared themselves already for such a possibility....even to the extent, I suspect, of viewing *intelligent* life as a new potential pool of converts.

Othewise, expect business as usual.

As noted, a few have prepared themselves already for such a possibility... even to the extent, I suspect, of viewing *intelligent* life as a new potential pool of converts.

See, for example, here (an interview with Brother Guy.)

Scientist/popular science writer Charles Pellegrino was talking about a possible underground ocean on Enceladus back in the '80s. I recently read his 1988 book HER NAME, TITANIC (which has a lot about him and what he was up too as well as about the doomed ocean liner), and there was some mention of that. Page 62: "We're almost certain that Saturn's moon Enceladus has an ocean of water under the ice, and probably Jupiter's Europa."

Extra-terrestrial life is unlikely to put much of an ideological kink in most Earth religions. Being that such things are easily integrated into most religions. However, intelligent non-human life with an entire set of alien social structures, mores, mythologies, etc. could very well upset some of the more literal minded religionists around the world. This should hardly come as a surprise, it wouldn't be the first time that aliens screwed up another society's religion, it's happened on Earth too many times to mention. It's happening right now to Islam, for example, in its confrontation with western liberal democracy and free markets. Some folks have religious beliefs that will be able to handle that sort of upset, others will have more trouble. At present those "others" make up the majority of the population of Earth.

Which isn't even to mention the possiblity of intelligent extraterrestrial life purposefully trying to convert humanity to some non-Earth religion.

Meaning that the fact of non-Earth life is one thing, the everyday reality of non-Earth life (especially intelligent life that we may end up interacting with) is quite another thing.

Absolutely to those who are saying that few if any religions would find the discovery of life or even intelligent life elsewhere troublesome. But I'm not sure that the atheists would be ready, if we happened to discover advanced intelligent life on another world (or if they discovered us), and they all turned out to be, say, Roman Catholics (or the extraterrestrial equivalent).

To a lover of truth (my religious preference) facts just add to the experience. Religion based on scripture tend to be egocentric because people look at what is written rather than what is unwritten (ie. 'he formed man from clay' rather than 'he had a great time tweaking the physical constants of the universe (playing) before he ever got around to mankind or vegetation or anything on one obscure planet in an unimaginable multitude of stars.)

The fact is, we need to seriously get over ourselves.

(shrug) The major religions will either ignore (which is not necessairily the same as disbelieve or reject, though some sects may do that) or embrace such a discovery. As noted, a few have prepared themselves already for such a possibility....even to the extent, I suspect, of viewing *intelligent* life as a new potential pool of converts.

The missionary activity will most certainly be in high gear. The Christian variant will combine the "wow, aliens are for real, I wanna meet some" excitement with the usual humanitarian impulses that inspire people to leave comfortable lives to build hospitals in jungles and rebuild crumbling buildings in former Soviet republics.

Even if the aliens are more advanced than we are, there will probably be corners of their civilization(s) whose infrastructure could be fixed up by us backwoods Earthlings.

But I'm not sure that the atheists would be ready, if...they all turned out to be, say, Roman Catholics (or the extraterrestrial equivalent).

*Romulan* Catholics :-)

But I'm not sure that the atheists would be ready, if we happened to discover advanced intelligent life on another world (or if they discovered us), and they all turned out to be, say, Roman Catholics (or the extraterrestrial equivalent).

But what will Catholics do if they turn out to be Cathars, eh?