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A small icy moon orbiting Saturn has become the centre of a major scientific breakthrough. Fresh data now suggests that Enceladus, with its hidden ocean and chemical-rich environment, may hold the key to understanding how life begins beyond Earth.
Are Life’s Ingredients Present on Enceladus?
Astronomers have confirmed that essential molecular building blocks for life are present on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. At just 314 miles http://wide, the icy world contains liquid water beneath its frozen crust and a source of hydrothermal energy, raising hopes of potential habitability.
Two decades ago, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft first revealed signs of a vast subsurface ocean ejecting ice particles from cracks near the moon’s south pole. Within these icy grains, scientists previously found five of the six elements vital for life: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus. Only sulphur remained undetected. However, many of those findings came from particles that had floated in Saturn’s E ring for centuries, leaving doubts about their origin.
Now, fresh ice grains freshly sprayed from Enceladus have provided new evidence of the existence of organic molecules, potentially including nitrogen and oxygen. These results, published in Nature Astronomy, validate the notion that the moon's internal ocean has the chemical toolset life needs.
