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Saturn's Lunar Life Signs

Bill M
encl-200.jpg

Scientists in the UK have been analyzing the results from NASA's Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and its moons and they've made some fascinating discoveries.  They have detected some necessary ingredients for life on Enceladus, one of Saturn's many moons.  The probe flew through a water ice plume and detected negative ions, leading scientists to believe that significant, active sub-surface water exists on Enceladus and an environment could exist there with the ability to support life.

Image courtesy of NASA.gov

 

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Comments

Maybe they will find Kevin

Submitted by Dabodizafa on Fri, 02/12/2010 - 16:56.
Maybe they will find Kevin Costner there in that...waterworld! All kidding aside, go get'em NASA.

Exciting Stuff

Submitted by dogfish14 on Thu, 02/18/2010 - 14:12.
I agree with E. Sam in that defining the necessary ingredients is tricky. I don't know enough about Enceladus specifically. But the best places for us to look are those that replicate what has happened here on Earth. Since Enceladus' potential life would be located beneath an ice layer it would be free of exposure to the sun's harmful wavelengths. This in turn also poses a problem. As described in the Urey-Miller experiment there must be some sort of external source of energy (i.e. light) coupled with certain elements (C, H, O, P, K, N, S, Ca, Fe, Mg, NaCl) in order to produce the fundamental building blocks of an organism, like amino-acids and other organic material. Even at that point it is unknown as to how the organic material "sparks" to life. Enceladus seems to be no better hope for life than Europa or Titan, but is certainly worth looking at.