Great News From Saturn! Finding Life on Moon Enceladus Just Got Easier
Quick Summary
Two new studies bring exciting news about Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus. Scientists found that tiny microbes could survive in its hidden ocean. They also found that the moon itself helps package signs of life so future spacecraft can easily detect them!
What Happened?
Saturn — the planet with the giant rings — has a small moon called Enceladus (say it: en-SELL-ah-dus). Enceladus is covered in thick ice. But underneath all that ice is a global ocean of liquid water. Scientists have long wondered: could something be living in that hidden ocean?
This week, two research teams published exciting studies in the journal Science Advances.
In the first study, scientists recreated Enceladus’s ocean inside a lab. They mixed together the same kinds of salts and minerals that the moon’s ocean likely contains. Then they added a tiny microorganism — a single-celled creature that is normally found near hot underwater volcanoes on Earth. The microbe not only survived, it actually kept growing and making methane gas. That is remarkable, because scientists thought the conditions on Enceladus would be too extreme for even the toughest microbes.
The second study brings equally good news. When water from Enceladus’s ocean travels up through cracks in the ice, it gets shot into space as giant fountains — called plumes — of icy particles. Scientists discovered that as those water droplets freeze, they naturally sort their ingredients, concentrating the most important chemicals into small, dense ice grains. Think of it like a snow globe that shakes itself and sorts all the glitter into one corner. A future spacecraft flying through those plumes could scoop up just a few of those special grains and likely find clear signs of life.
Why Does It Matter?
For a long time, finding life on Enceladus seemed really hard. A spacecraft would need to drill through kilometers of ice just to reach the ocean — the way you would have to drill through a wall of ice thicker than 20 school buses stacked on top of each other. But the plumes solve that problem! The ocean is already spraying its ingredients into space. A spacecraft just has to fly through and catch them.
These studies do not prove that life exists on Enceladus. But they show the conditions are right for life AND that future missions could detect it. Enceladus just jumped to the top of the list of places to look for alien life in our solar system.
Big Words
- Enceladus — A small, icy moon of Saturn that hides a global ocean of liquid water beneath its frozen surface.
- Microbe — A tiny living thing so small you need a microscope to see it; bacteria and archaea are types of microbes.
- Plume — A tall jet of liquid or gas shooting upward — like a geyser, but in space.
- Biosignature — A chemical or physical clue that suggests life is present, or was present, somewhere.
- Methane — A gas made of carbon and hydrogen. On Earth it is produced by many living things, including certain microbes and even cows!
Fun Fact
Enceladus is only about as wide as the state of Arizona, but its plumes shoot ice particles into space at nearly 800 miles per hour — faster than most jet airplanes fly!
Think About It
If a future spacecraft collected an ice grain from Enceladus’s plumes and found signs of life inside, how do you think it would change the way humans think about our place in the universe?
Sources
- phys.org — Great news from Saturn’s moon Enceladus in the search for life in space
- Universe Today — Finding Life on Enceladus Could be Easier than We Thought, Says New Research
- The Debrief — Saturn’s Moon Enceladus May Be Even More Hospitable to Life Than Scientists Thought
- UC Riverside — Saturn’s moon offers clues in search for extraterrestrial life