Reply #171: This highlights the importance of the Cassini mission

[Althaia]

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/index.cfm

The probe Cassini has been studying the Saturn system for a while. It has discovered lakes of liquid methane on Titan, and ice volcanoes on the surface of Enceladus, suggesting liquid water beneath its crust of ice. It has also discovered that Rhea has a thin oxygen/carbon dioxide atmosphere.

Demonstrating that life does not have to have the same chemical composition in all cases is enormously important. It supports the idea that there could very well be microbial life elsewhere in our own solar system.