Scientists have discovered a wealth of information from one of Saturn’s smallest moons, Enceladus. What they have found are the basic building blocks for life. Contents from erupting plumes off the surface of the moon and studied by the Cassini spacecraft have revealed that just beneath the moon’s surface there is all the essentials for life. Those necessary elements are warmth, water and specific organic chemicals.
While scientists are quick to point out that, thus far, they haven’t found any evidence for actual life on or underneath the surface of Enceladus, all the building blocks are in place to allow life to spring forth.
“Water vapor was the major constituent. There was methane present. There was carbon dioxide. There was carbon monoxide. There were simple organics and there were more complex organics,” Hunter Waite of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, said at a news conference yesterday.
“Of course, natural gas comes from decaying biological matter on Earth. But this is not the conclusion we reached for Enceladus. Another possibility is the geochemistry going on in the interior can also produce organics,” Waite added.
“We see on Enceladus the three basic requirements for the origin of life,” Larry Esposito of the University of Colorado said. “We see water, although it may not be liquid. We see organic compounds … and we also have a source of heat.”
“Now we don’t yet see, nor can we tell or state, whether the interior of Enceladus contains liquid water, and if that water might be a habitat for life,” Esposito added, adding that “future fly-bys will examine that question, starting in August [of this year].”
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