This is a re-post of a 2008 seminar I attended by speaker Dr. Carolyn Porco.
28 April, 2008. University of Colorado at Boulder. Dr. Carolyn Porco of the Space Science Institute gave a public lecture at CU Boulder on the highlights of the Cassini Mission to Saturn. Porco gives a lively presentation and- dare I say it- is mildly charismatic. The website of the imaging group, ciclops.org, is quite well done and even includes downloads of many of the papers from the team. The paper on Enceladus is particularly interesting.
As a chemist sitting anonymously in a crowd of space science enthusiasts and professionals, I cannot help but compare the tenor of the experience to my own field of chemistry.
Space science people are funded in proportion to the general public enthusiasm for space. The universe is big. Really, really big. And it is full of breathtaking scenery and wondrous objects. Space science almost always causes people to experience a deeply emotional sense of awe and wonder. This has not been lost on the space science community. The display of majestic photos with a bit of space music in the background goes a long way to rally public support.
Chemistry on the other hand, rarely induces this kind of raw response from the limbic system. Whereas chemistry induces shock, astronomy induces awe.
The most common exhortation made on exposure to the chemical sciences is “How in the hell am I going to pass this course?”
Students take intro to astronomy classes as an enjoyable way to get their science credits. Students take chemistry because they have to. We all know this. Science aversion is even more extreme for the poor sots in physics.
The SI unit for humility is the “sagan”. Public astronomy talks usually have a high sagan factor. I would estimate last nights talk was 8.5 out of 10 sagans.
Of particular interest to Porco was the Saturnian moon Enceladus. This moon has substantial water on it with evidence of “tectonic” activity on the uncratered surface. On closer inspection, it is apparent that this body is spewing water into space with fair vigor. Indeed, a vapor torus of water tracing the orbit can be seen on some of the images. The suggestion is that there may be liquid water under a water ice crust. IR images show hot spots that coincide with surface fissures on Enceladus. This moon would be a good place to land some drilling equipment.
Porco spoke of the hope of eventually finding life on Enceladus or on Jupiter’s Europa. She suggested that this would finally “break the spell” and allow the assumption that life may be relatively common on worlds with liquid water.
What this kind of planetary exploration affords are insights into the evolution of planets and ultimately, what circumstances are likely and necessary for the ignition of life. But the circumstances that promote life formation are chemical in nature. The origin of life is not an astronomical problem. It is a chemical network problem and for that we need the involvement of chemists.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
“The SI unit for humility is the “sagan”. Public astronomy talks usually have a high sagan factor.”
Chemists poison the water, create new explosives, mutate our genes, dope out our children, outsource our jobs (yes chemists do it too!).
While astronomers…..uhhhh..o.k they waste our tax dollars. But it’s only because we want them to. No one really needs to see further into space. Although I’m all for funding our Iraq dollars into an anti-asteroid shield.
Next time the dentist goes to drill into your teeth, be sure to ask for a chemical free experience.
“The universe is big. Really, really big. And it is full of breathtaking scenery and wondrous objects.”
Can I object to the word “full”?
One of our meeting rooms here at Aspen Research has a poster based on the “Powers of Ten” film/book that Philip Morrison did. For those who haven’t seen it, it starts with a couple picnicing at Soldier Field in Chicago. Starting at a height of 1 m, it then backs out to 10m, 100m,… After getting out to 10^25m, it then zooms back and downward eventually reaching 10^-18 m. This poster is just a series of stills from the movie.
What always strikes me upon seeing the whole set of stills in one glance is how much black there is, not just on the galatic scale but also on the atomic scale. This was not something that I didn’t know, I just never had both ends of the ruler shown to me simultaneously.
(And then there’s the xkcd comic)
Well … OK. The universe is full of empty space. The waxing was a bit heavy there.
I had forgotten that Philip Morrison was in Powers of Ten- it was one of my favorites.
Back in the 70’s I had the opportunity to sit and look at photos from the Palomar Sky Survey. What still amazes me is the large number of galaxies out there.
How full is it?
If we took all the stuff in the universe and pushed it all into one area (minimal compression) what % of the universe actually has matter in it.
Whatever happened to anti-matter? Not much said about that anymore. It would obviously skew things.
Looks like my html coding was bad. I was trying to link to: http://xkcd.com/271/
Hi Red,
The theoretical guys have worked on the matter of the apparent imbalance of matter with anti-matter. I am not up to speed on it. I’m not certain that there is an agreed upon answer. Sounds like a good question for Mr. Google.