Is there life elsewhere in the solar system? There is no answer to this question yet, but there are a few places scientists are looking. Enceladus is strong in the first place.
This week’s satellite imagery is a beautiful image of Enceladus. This moon revolves around the planet Saturn. The moon, which is 500 kilometers wide, is very cold and completely covered in ice. Enceladus has been photographed regularly by the Cassini spacecraft. In 2017, the Cassini mission ended and the spacecraft caught fire in Saturn’s atmosphere. In 2017, visitors to Scientias.nl voted 40 most beautiful pictures of Cassini, with the image below showing Enceladus the winner.
This mosaic consists of 28 different images glued together. Picture taken in 2008.
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Beneath the frozen surface is an ocean 40 miles thick. In 2019, scholars wrote In Science magazine, this underground ocean is enriched with hydrogen gas. It can be a source of life. Hydrogen gas enters the ocean thanks to hydrothermal activity on the seabed. So the researchers showed that the three essential components of life – liquid water, a source of energy for metabolism and the correct chemical components – are almost all present. Only phosphorus and sulfur have yet to be discovered, but it’s only a matter of time.
The water column contains amino acid components
Sprinkle the moon regularly Columns of water soar high in space. Researchers recently discovered a new organic compound in this column. These nitrogen and oxygen-carrying compounds play a major role in the production of amino acids: complex molecules that act as building blocks for proteins. Without these proteins, life as we know it would not exist on Earth. “We don’t yet know whether amino acids are necessary for extraterrestrial life, but finding the molecules that make up amino acids is an important piece of the puzzle,” said researcher Nozir Khawaja.
Enceladus splashes water into space. Hopefully one day we can analyze this water and see if there are any signs of life.
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Not a mission to Enceladus, but to Titan
Scientists hope to one day see under the ice of Enceladus, but unfortunately no missions are planned yet. This is partly due to the fact that the average ice sheet is twenty kilometers thick. In Antarctica, the ice sheet is thinner than five kilometers, but you still can’t dig it out. And then it became interesting to send a space probe with a radar instrument to Enceladus to “see” under the ice in this way. Fortunately, another mission to Saturn and its moons is planned. This is how it will be in 2036 Dragonfly Quadrocopter Exploring Titan. The drone will land on the Shangri-La dune on Titan and then continue to fly elsewhere. Drones also collect samples from the surface. Scientists hope dragonflies will discover the building blocks of life and tell us more about the origin of life.
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