On Wednesday, it is said that the ocean hidden under the icy shell of Saturn’s lunar enceladus has complex organic molecules, providing additional evidence that a small world can have all the necessary ingredients to accept extra -life.
Just 310 miles width and invisible from the bare eye, white, scars covered with encelades are one of the hundred moons flying the sixth planet from the Sun.
For a long time, scientists thought that the encelades were too far from the sun – and therefore too cold – to be living.
Then the Cassini space probe flew through the moon several times during 2004-2017. A trip to Saturn and its rings, learning evidence that a The large salty water ocean is hidden Under the moon miles thick layer of ice.
Since then, scientists have sifted Cassini data, revealing that the ocean has many elements believed to be needed for life, including salt, methane, carbon dioxide and phosphorus;
When the spacecraft passed through the lunar south pole, he discovered water nozzles exploding through the surface cracks.
These nozzles drive small ice particles into space – smaller than sand grain. Although some of these ice grain returned to the surface of the moon, others collected around one of the many Saturn rings.
When Cassini flew through Saturn’s outer “E” ring, it was a “detection of examples of Enceladus” of all time, Nozair Khawaja, a scientist and main author of a new study by a free Berlin University, said in a statement by the European Space Agency.
“There are many possible ways from organic molecules that we have found in Cassini data to potentially biologically important compounds that increase the likelihood that the moon is living,” Nosair said.
In this picture provided by NASA, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft captured this Enceladus image in 2010. On November 30, and Enceladus is clearly visible in the shadow of the body. / Credit: Ap
After looking at these samples, scientists have previously found many organic molecules, including the predecessors of amino acids, which are the main blocks of life.
But these ice grains could have been replaced after they were stuck in the ring for hundreds of years – or they were beaten by space radiation explosions.
So scientists wanted to look at fresh ice grain.
Fortunately, they already had access to some.
When 2008 Cassini flew directly into the spray emanating from the lunar surface, and the ice grains hit the cosmic dust analyzer for about 11 miles per second.
However, it took years to perform a detailed chemical analysis of these particles, which was conducted by a study published in Nature Astronomy.
“There are two very different things to be residential and accommodation. We believe that encelades are populated, but we don’t know if life really is,” Fabian Klenner, Fabiano, University of Washington University, told the study.
“To have a variety of organic compounds in the extraterrestrial water world is simply phenomenal,” The letter told the AP Klenner.
“Another piece of puzzle”
The co -author of the study, Frank Postberg, said the study proves that “the complex organic molecule Cassini, found in the Saturn E ring, is not just a product of long space effects, but also easily accessible in the Oceladus Ocean.”
French astrochemist Caroline Freissinet, who did not participate in the study, told AFP that “there is not much doubt” that these molecules were in the moon ocean.
However, this confirmation provides “another piece of puzzle,” she added.
It also shows that the latest technologies, such as artificial intelligence, allow scientists to analyze new types of old data, she said.
However, to find out the best idea of what is happening in Encelades in the city, the mission will need to descend next to the icy geysers and collect examples, she added.
The European Space Agency has explored the possibilities of the mission that would do it.
After all, Encladus marks all the boxes to make a living environment that can support life, ”the agency said in a statement.
Khawaja added that “even without finding the Enceladus of Life would be a huge discovery because it raises serious questions about why there is no life in such an environment when there are appropriate conditions.”
NASA has a spacecraft on the way to another tempting target to hunt the ingredients of life: Jupiter Moon Europe. Europe Clipper is expected to begin with orbit that in 2030 There will be dozens of Europa Flyys. ESA also has a spacecraft, a juice that is directed at Jupiter to look at Europe and two other icy moons that could hold buried oceans.
Underground oceans on moons “are probably the best candidates for extraterrestrial life in our solar system. This work only confirms the need for further research,” said Nigel Mason, a professor of physics in Kent, who did not participate in the latest findings, said AP.
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