Tired of political news? Had enough of the shouting from both side of the political spectrum? Feast your eyes on a beautiful new world away from Earth and start life anew…no, wait, it’s not that spectacular of an astronomical breakthrough.
Though, some new revelations in the Solar System have left scientists and media types alike with wide eyes as the potentiality for life beyond Earth is much closer to becoming reality.
The Cassini spacecraft has revealed complex organic molecules originating from Enceladus, an icy, ocean-world moon of Saturn, leading scientists to believe that conditions on the hostile world could be suitable to host life.
When the mission was launched in 1997, the Cassini spacecraft was sent to Saturn to study its rings and 62 moons, analyzing the planetary atmosphere, chemical makeup, and to figure out how it was created billions of years ago. The astronomic exploration collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ASI) was a 20-year endeavor, which ended with the Cassini spacecraft executing its “Grand Finale” of a number of high-risk passes through the gaps between Saturn and its inner rings.
Not much was known about Enceladus before the moon was orbited by the spacecraft in 2005. Upon the cosmic greeting between the two, it has continuously surprised astronomers with its physical characteristics that are somewhat similar to some here on Earth.
Scientists have discovered that the roughly 310-mile-diameter moon has a large ocean beneath a thick, icy surface, and evidence showing there are powerful hydrothermal vents on the seabed that mix up material from the moon’s water-filled, porous core with the ocean water.
Massive geysers were detected releasing a combination of ice grains and water vapor from the subterranean oceans through cracks – called “tiger stripes” – in the moon’s icy surface shell. The expelled material provides material for one of Saturn’s rings.
According to a report from Phys.org, scientist Frank Postberg at the University of Heidelberg in Germany says, “It is the first ever detection of complex organics coming from an extraterrestrial water-world.”
His colleague Nozair Khawaja said in the scientific journal Nature, “We found large molecular fragments that show structures typical for very complex organic molecules.” He added, “These huge molecules contain a complex network often built from hundreds of atoms of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and likely nitrogen that form ring-shaped and chain-like substructures.”
The large fragments, which are measured up to 200 units of molecular mass, are created as the ice grains hit an instrument on Cassini that analyzes dust as the craft orbits the moon at speeds of over 18,000 miles per hour. The scientists do believe that before the collision with the spacecraft, the grains contain the original, even larger molecules, which could have molecular weights of thousands of atomic mass units.
Such a large molecular structure can only be created by complex chemical processes – including those related to the natural creation of life. Alternatively, they say, the molecules could come from “primordial material” as found in some meteorites or generated by hydrothermal activity.
“In my opinion the fragments we found are of hydrothermal origin, having been processed inside the hydrothermally active core of Enceladus: in the high pressures and warm temperatures we expect there, it is possible that complex organic molecules can arise,” Postberg said.
This process is very similar to what happens at the bottom of the ocean on Earth. Organic material ejected out of hydrothermal vents deep in the world’s oceans are one of the possible environments that scientists investigate for the emergence of life on Earth. These organic substances from deeper waters can accumulate efficiently on the walls of rising air bubbles, transporting them to the surface where they are dispersed along with sea spray when the bubble bursts.
Scientists now think a similar process could be happening on Enceladus.
On the icy moon, bubbles of gas, rising through dozens of miles worth of ocean depth, may bring up organic material to form a thin film floating on the ocean surface beneath the icy shell.
When the bubbles burst at the surface, it helps disperse some of the organics with spray of salty ocean water. Tiny droplets of the dispersed organic material become coated in ice when water vapor freezes on their surface. Along with the frozen spray of ocean water, they are ejected in the plumes detected by Cassini hundreds of miles above the moon.
All of this means that Enceladus could be a potentially habitable water-world.
However, with the spacecraft’s data alone, it is not possible to confirm the exact origin of the organics, as the fragments were beyond the maximum size limit that could be analyzed by Cassini’s delicate instruments.
Postberg explained, “If we could visit Enceladus again, we would take instruments that can see the entire molecules, not just these fragments, and that would tell us exactly what they are and how they have been created.”
“It seems that this mysterious moon will keep this secret for some time, but it is in the reach of a future mission to Enceladus to solve this part of the puzzle,” added Khawaja.
For the future, Enceladus and a few moons of other planets will be analyzed by spacecraft in upcoming missions. Launching in 2022, with a contact date of sometime in 2029, ESA’s JUpiter ICy moons Explorer – Juice – will look at Jupiter’s complex system of natural satellites, the largest three being Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto – all thought to have underground oceans.
The discovery is a near Earth-shattering revelation as scientists and astronomers have been searching the cosmos for exoplanets that may be able to harbor life. May be one of the most surprising facets of the Cassini mission is that potentially habitable is just beyond Earth.
