NASA says ingredients of life exist on Saturn’s moon Enceladus

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NASA has sent chills all over the world by revealing that they have found the ingredients that support life on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. In a tweet, NASA revealed that they had sent an unmanned spacecraft, Cassini to Saturn and it has found out ingredients which could support life in the plume of particles spraying from Saturn’s moon Enceladus.

.@CassiniSaturn discovered ingredients for life in the plume of particles spraying from Enceladus: https://t.co/BmW9P9kv9c #OceanWorlds pic.twitter.com/IN3ohXxjkb

— NASA (@NASA) April 13, 2017

Scientists have found the presence of Hydrogen molecules in the geysers of water shooting up from the surface. The report says that the jets of gas and ice which comes from the moon’s south pole contain hydrogen in molecular form. This means that there is a high possibility that Enceladus could support life for aliens. Hydrogen, on earth, provides the fuel for the organisms which lives around vents on the seafloor. Its presence on Enceladus indicates that this part of the universe might have the right conditions to give rise to microbial life.

Cassini orbiting around Saturn.

The associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Thomas Zurbuchen, said that this is the closest they have ever come to find a place other than earth which could support a habitable environment.

The theory strongly indicates that some hydrothermal activity is happening in the ocean which is encased in a frozen crust, beneath the surface of Enceladus.

Science suggests that life cannot be repressed. Life exists in caves, in clouds, in boiling water plumes that springs from deep into the oceans, in the lakes which are buried beneath the ice sheets of Antarctica. As long as there is water, organic molecules and a little bit of energy are there, life can exist even in the most extremes of the environment.

Saturn’s moon Enceladus has all the basic ingredients for life.

Enceladus satisfies all the conditions required for life to exist. It has become the most likely place and scientist’s best bet to find alien creatures.

However, Enceladus might not be the only place which could support life. Recently, the images from the Hubble Space Telescope indicated that Jupiter’s moon Europa could also be the adobe of plumes that were found on Enceladus. The jets were so powerful that the scientists were able to see gusts of material going upwards as they extended beyond 50 kilometres above the moon’s surface.

Europa also harbours a subsurface saltwater ocean like Enceladus and there is a possibility that it could contain organic molecules as well. NASA is hoping that the geysers of Europa are connected to its watery interior. In the future NASA is planning to search for the signs of life on Jupiter.

Cassini spacecraft will crash into Saturn in September after a job well done.

In 2015, the spacecraft Cassini dug deep into the geysers of the moon.  The results showed that the geysers contain a surprising ratio of carbon dioxide, molecular hydrogen, and methane. Hydrogen in its molecular form is highly volatile and it does not get easily trapped in an icy place like Enceladus. Its presence there means that there are continuous processes going on beneath the surface that keeps on replenishing molecular hydrogen.

Scientists have tried to understand the reason behind this chemical imbalance. The most likely explanation they have come up with is serpentinization. The hot water from the floor of the ocean in Enceladus flows through the cracks in the seafloor.This hot water reacts chemically with iron-rich rock and forms molecular hydrogen.

This phenomenon is quite similar to what happens around hydrothermal vents on earth which provide fuel to chemosynthetic organisms. These creatures derive their energy from chemical imbalances instead from the sun. They get their energy by the reaction of carbon dioxide and hydrogen which results in the formation of methane. This process is known as methanogenesis.

This discovery is a huge step in the process to find life in the universe. Who knows that the myth about aliens might be true and we may finally find the illusion of aliens we have been searching for so long.

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