I’d never heard of this moon before.

This is a picture of Saturn’s moon Enceladus taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. See those cracks near the white crescent? Scientist’s current best guess is that those mark the edges of ice floes. And the fuzzy plume at the top? A geyser of water. Yes, liquid water. Way out there in orbit around Saturn.

And the folks steering Cassini are hoping to get closer to the geyser to see if there are any complex molecules that may be indicative of life spewing out into space.

Isn’t the solar system great?

Read more about the photo and the Cassini mission at Bad Astronomy.

Read more about the search for complex molecules at New Scientist.

Read more about Cassini at NASA.

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Can I have a hit of Saturn, please?

Okay. If you’re reading this, you probably know that homeopathy is a crock of Grade-A crap. But every day I seem to be learning that it’s even crappier than I had imagined.

Take this example: Trituration Proving of the Light of Saturn. An astrologer and homeopath put a bunch of lactose underneath the eyepiece of a telescope she had aimed at Saturn. She then mixed the star-gazing lactose with lactose straight out of the bottle and fed the powder to a bunch of people. Then she took notes about how the lactose-eaters felt and what they talked about.

So, apparently lactose molecules can talk to each other just like water molecules can. I wonder if the butane molecules in a lighter talk to each other and decide whether they’re going to ignite or not?

And, apparently, topics of conversation are “symptoms”. As opposed to just being topics of conversation. What a bunch of morons.

I’ll let these people test their lactose tolerance and go read about the newly-discovered Phoebe ring around Saturn.

Read the “proving”.