NASA scientists announced that they had found new evidence that the most successful places to search for life in the Solar system beyond Earth are the moon of Jupiter Europe, or Saturn’s moon Enceladus.
And Enceladus has almost all the key “ingredients” for life. The sixth largest moon of Saturn is an ocean enclosed in the ice shell. Enceladus is geologically active and is famous for its ice fountains.
Just last and studied the Cassini spacecraft in 2015, flying about 50 km from the surface of the South pole of Enceladus. The unit took samples for chemical analysis of the “fountains”.
NASA has identified the most suitable for the objects in cosmoecology hunter Waite of the southwest research Institute a half later, presented the results of this analysis: in the samples found molecular hydrogen, the most likely source of which they call hydrothermal reaction, reports CNN.
“Our analysis shows the possibility of methanogenesis, which may occur in a wide range of geochemical conditions possible in the ocean of Enceladus. This result is important from the point of view of determining the suitability of an ocean beneath the surface of Enceladus for life,” the researchers say.
“The presence of hydrogen has become another sign of hydrothermal activity. This is very interesting because of our own oceans, we know that these areas are very important, they are living organisms and must be early sources of the origin of life on Earth,” added Waite.
In addition, the Hubble telescope found that the warmest parts of the surface of Europa (moon of Jupiter), where there is under-ice ocean, also formed geysers. The telescope watched them in 2014 and 2016, but because of their irregular occurrences, scientists still doubt that these “fountains” exist.
However, William sparks, an astronomer at the Scientific Institute of the telescope “Hubble” in Baltimore, noted that “the pendulum has swung from caution to optimism” in this issue.
Necessary “ingredients” for life is liquid water, energy sources and chemicals such as carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulfur and phosphorus. However, we also know that life is “making headway” in the most severe conditions of Earth, where the microorganisms receive energy of sunlight, but use methanogenesis. Europa and Enceladus are very promising to scientists because they contain some of the key ingredients.
© 2017, paradox. All rights reserved.
