'Oxygen surrounding Saturn's moon Dione'

[661-pete]

As reported here:

BBC News - Oxygen envelops Saturn's icy moon

Is this - if confirmed - the first extra-terrestrial oxygen atmosphere? Even if Dione is hardly likely to be a candidate for supporting life, does this discovery bring the prospect of ET life any closer? ;)

[Collyer911]

there really are some strange and intriguing moons out there

my only fear is we will never agree to study and examine them due to cost,

which i find depressing on a daily basis

just think of the discoveries we could make if we just stopped fighting each other.

sorry if a bit downbeat but we as a species we need to reach out and discover just whats is in are own"backyard"

[Sam]

It will be interesting to see how the oxygen got there, after all we got our oxygen from microbes.

[jimmyjamjoejoe]

It's a shame we've lost our "SCREW THE DANGER, I WANNA KNOW WHATS OUT THERE, AND I WANNA KNOW FIRST!" attitude from the 60/70's.

[Black Knight]

The theory is that charged particles radiated from Saturn have split water in the ice on Dione into hydrogen and oxygen.