The search for smart life beyond the Land has always intrigued scholars rocket science. Now, these investigations gain momentum with a new scientific study that shows that in enceladus, Saturn’s sixth largest moonthere are conditions that can allow the existence of new species.
The rocky body has 498 kilometers in diameter approximately and is surrounded by a shiny layer of ice. Beneath this icy surface lies a liquid water oceanwhere a group of scientists discovered matcha key component of life.
The data was collected by the spacecraft Casiniof the POTthe resultant allowed the researchers to find the presence of this fundamental chemical, to later prepare a report and publish it in the journal Nature.
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The probe started a explores Saturn, its rings, and its moons in 2004but it had a tragic end when it was incinerated in the gaseous layer of the giant atmosphere, ending its mission in 2017.
“This is an amazing discovery for astrobiology”said Christopher Glein, one of the paper’s co-authors, from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. And he added: “We have found abundant samples of ice phosphors that bubble up from the subterranean ocean.”
Phosphorus: the hint of life on Saturn’s moon
Saturn’s sixth largest moon, enceladusIt is one of the few places in the solar system where HE has discovered liquid waterwhich makes it an objective of interest and study for the astrobiologists.
Previously, it had been discovered that this rocky body has long snake-shaped cracks on its icy surfacewhich expel into space huge columns composed of ice grains and water vapor.
Just last month, researchers detected a “surprisingly large” column from from the south pole of Enceladus, which they say could become a sign of life
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While scientists had already found other minerals and organic compounds in the ejected ice grains, they had found no matcha essential component for DNA and RNA.
Furthermore, this chemical element is also found in the bones and teeth of people, animals, and even in oceanic plankton. In a nutshell, life as we know it would not be possible without matches.
“It is the first time that this essential element has been discovered in an ocean beyond the earth“said lead author Frank Postberg, a planetary scientist at Germany’s Freie Universitat Berlin, in a statement from the US agency POT.
The next investigations in search of life on Enceladus
To discover phosphorus in the ocean of Enceladus, the authors studied the data collected by Cassini’s cosmic dust analyzer and confirmed the performance of laboratory experiments to demonstrate that the ocean has incorporated this component in different forms soluble in water.
the probe of the POT spent more than a decade exploring Saturn and its known moons, and as a result perfect taking pictures of Enceladus’s pillars and flying through them.
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Although its mission ended in September 2017, when it was deorbited to burn up in the planet’s upper atmosphere, the data collected will continue to be analyzed for many years.
“With this finding, it is now known that the ocean on Enceladus meets what is generally considered the strictest requirement for lifeGlein said. “The next step is clear: we have to go back to Enceladus to to see if the habitable ocean is really inhabited”stressed.
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Over the past 25 years, planetary scientists have discovered worlds with oceans under a surface layer of ice. Among them are Europeone of Jupiter’s moons; Titan, Saturn’s largest moon; and even the most distant planet in the solar system, Pluto.
While planets like Earth, which have oceans on the surface it needs to exist within a narrow range of its star to maintain temperatures suitable for life, the discovery of worlds with subsurface oceans expands the number of habitable places that could exist in the universe.
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