While speculations about life on Enceladus are already circulating, scientists now think that verification of life may be possible without having to seep through the moon's ice shell and oceans.
Could Life Be Present in Enceladus?
Enceladus, the moon of Saturn, is one of the ideal sites for the thriving of extraterrestrial life across the solar system. According to Science Alert, the moon has a salt-filled ocean with heating inside it that makes and maintains temperatures to be suitable for extraterrestrial marine life.
The detection of life, however, is easier said than done. Enceladus is engulfed by an ice shell that is thought to have a thickness of around 5 km. Moreover, the ocean under it is around 10 km in depth. This would lead to grave challenges here on earth, more so in a moon that is situated far from earth.
However, scientists suggest that it may not be necessary to drill into the shell to detect life signals. New research discovers that life can be detected from salt-water plumes that rise from the moon's surface.
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Detecting Life Without Descending
The research was added to the Planetary Science Journal. Regis Ferrière, an evolutionary biologist from the University of Arizona, expresses how deploying a robot to delve through the ice cracks and reach the seafloor would be quite a hard feat.
The team, however, reveals that through the stimulating data from plumes taken from a ready and upgraded spacecraft, such an approach may be sufficient to conclusively evaluate whether there is indeed life within the oceans of Enceladus. This can be executed without the need to delve into the moon's depths. For that very reason, the perspective is seen to be quite thrilling.
Unlike earth, it is improbable for Enceladus to be filled with cows and other species. However, in the depths of earth's oceans, which is far from sunlight access, an interesting ecosystem was found. Life in such regions do not depend on photosynthesis but on the hitching up of chemical reaction energy.
Science Alert notes how similar ecosystems could be present across Enceladus. Yahoo! News also reports that the moon finishes its orbit within 33 hours.
At the south pole of the moon, where the shell of ice is at its thinnest state, huge water plumes that have a height of over hundreds of kilometers were observed to erupt from beneath the ice. This spews the liquid which scientists think partially attribute to the ice in the planet's rings.
When Cassini flew through such plumes more than ten years ago, it was able to trace various molecules, including elevated concentrations of a selection that is linked to the hydrothermal vents of earth. Such findings could be connected to earth's archaea, which produce methane.
Methanogens, microbes which are the simplest living things, change carbon dioxide and dihydrogen in order to have energy. It then expels methane as its byproduct.
Ferrière's team of researchers modeled calculations grounded on the assumptions that Enceladus is filled with methanogens that dwell in the hydrothermal vents that are similar to that of earth's. They calculated the estimated total mass of such methanogens.
Postdoctoral research associate Antonin Affholder, who is associated with the university, noted their surprise in spotting how the hypothetical cell abundance would have the biomass of a whale within the moon's ocean.
Though the moon's biosphere could be quite sparse, their model reflects that it could have enough productivity to fuel plumes with sufficient organic cells or molecules that can be picked up by spacecraft equipment.
The research reveals that if a biosphere is indeed present within the moon's ocean, existence evidence may be picked up through the plume material even without having to drill or land. This mission, however, would necessitate multiple orbits in order to gather significant samples.
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