Wakka
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Baker City, Oregon
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This might not seem like a really big deal, but discovering atmospheres on moons within our solar system could lead to learning more about potential terraforming.
They found an atmosphere on Saturn's moon Enceladus, which is covered with ice (and possibly water underneath). On a moon with an atmosphere, equipped probes could run experiments with chemical reactions - learning more about converting atmospheres.
They've found an atmosphere on Titan, too.
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Doitsujin
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Bonn
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Cool. It's been known for quite a while that Titan has a dense atmosphere (similar in density to Earth), but it's interesting to know that Enceladus has one, too. I'm very suprised about that, though. Enceladus is pretty small (about 500 kilometers in diameter), and like most satellites of the gas giants composed of an ice/rock mix. Hence there can't be much of a gravity to hold an atmosphere. It's really amazing.
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Kyler
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Cambridge, Massachusetts
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I doubt we could terraform anything as far out as Saturn's orbit, simply because there's no where near enough sunlight to keep the environment warm - even with the most extreme greenhouse effect in play.
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Doitsujin
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Bonn
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Point, plus it's rather unlikely that Enceladus would hold any dense atmosphere. After all, probably old Mars is the best candidate for terraforming in our solar system.
And, quite possibly we will find even better candidates orbiting nearby planets.
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Kyler
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Cambridge, Massachusetts
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Nearby planets? Or nearby stars?
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