Post by demos on Jun 15, 2023 15:58:49 GMT
A salty ocean hidden under the icy shell of a tiny moon orbiting Saturn has all the key building blocks of life, suggesting the world is habitable, according to new research.
Enceladus, a moon about 300 miles in diameter, harbors a global, subsurface ocean more than 30 miles deep. Continuously erupting plumes at its south pole spray bits of icy particles from that ocean hundreds of miles into space through cracks in the moon’s crust at supersonic speeds.
These geysers enable a spacecraft flying by to study the chemical makeup of Enceladus’s ocean without plunging beneath the ice. Data from previous National Aeronautics and Space Administration missions suggested this moon possessed every chemical building block needed for life to form except one—the element phosphorus...
Enceladus, a moon about 300 miles in diameter, harbors a global, subsurface ocean more than 30 miles deep. Continuously erupting plumes at its south pole spray bits of icy particles from that ocean hundreds of miles into space through cracks in the moon’s crust at supersonic speeds.
These geysers enable a spacecraft flying by to study the chemical makeup of Enceladus’s ocean without plunging beneath the ice. Data from previous National Aeronautics and Space Administration missions suggested this moon possessed every chemical building block needed for life to form except one—the element phosphorus...
Now, that final seed of life has been detected among icy particles orbiting Saturn that originated from Enceladus’s ocean plumes, researchers reported in a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature...
Cool.
So, potentially something (microbes, e.g.) might be living in Enceladus' ocean.
Here is the study in Nature.
