Astro Blog

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/14/science/enceladus-moon-cyanide-life-saturn.html By Kenneth Chang , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Scientists have detected a poison among the spray of molecules emanating from a small moon of Saturn. That adds to existing intrigue about the possibility of life there. The poison is hydrogen cyanide, a colorless gas that is deadly to many Earth creatures. But it could have played a key role in chemical reactions that created the ingredients that set the stage for the advent of life. ...Mr. Peter and his collaborators, Tom Nordheim and Kevin Hand of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, reported their findings in a paper published on Thursday in the journal Nature Astronomy.... 

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05987-9 ]  By Frank Postberg ,  Yasuhito Sekine ,  Fabian Klenner ,  Christopher R. Glein ,  Zenghui Zou ,  Bernd Abel ,  Kento Furuya ,  Jon K. Hillier ,  Nozair Khawaja ,  Sascha Kempf ,  Lenz Noelle ,  Takuya Saito ,  Juergen Schmidt ,  Takazo Shibuya ,  Ralf Srama  &  Shuya Tan , Nature.  Excerpt: Saturn’s moon Enceladus harbours a global ice-covered water ocean 2 , 3 . The Cassini spacecraft investigated the composition of the ocean by analysis of material ejected into space by the moon’s cryovolcanic plume 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 . The analysis of salt-rich ice grains by Cassini’s Cosmic Dust Analyzer 10  enabled inference of major solutes in the ocean water (Na + , K + , Cl – , HCO 3 – , CO 3 2– ).... Here we present Cassini’s Cosmic Dust Analyzer mass spectra of ice grains emitted by Enceladus that show the presence of sodium phosphates. ...of the six elements—C, H, N, O, P and S—that are generally considered to be critical ingredien

https://www.science.org/content/article/giant-plume-spotted-erupting-moon-saturn-might-contain-ingredients-life By Ron Cowen, Science.  Excerpt: NASA’s JWST space telescope has observed a 10,000-kilometer-long plume of water vapor jetting into space from Saturn’s moon Enceladus—the largest spray ever detected from the icy world, which is just one-seventh the diameter of Earth’s Moon. ...Planetary scientists view Enceladus as a prime target in the search for extraterrestrial life because beneath its icy crust the moon houses a salty ocean—a good medium for the ingredients of life to mix. ...Researchers describe the results  today in a NASA press release  and in a  paper  accepted at Nature Astronomy. ...NASA’s Cassini mission, which in 2005 discovered the plumes on Enceladus  ... flew through them  seven times during its 13-year mission, discovering organic molecules such as methane and formaldehyde, and hydrogen, a potential energy source for microbes.... 

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/11/how-enceladus-got-its-water-spewing-tiger-stripes Source:   By Adam Mann, Science Magazine. Excerpt: Researchers say they have solved a long-standing mystery about Saturn’s tiny, frozen moon Enceladus: why its south pole features long, water-spewing geysers known as tiger stripes. The study could also help explain why these unique formations aren’t seen on any other satellite in the solar system. Enceladus became a star attraction in 2005, when NASA’s Cassini mission photographed enormous jets of water ice and vapor emanating from four parallel slashes near its south pole. Since then, researchers have detected organic molecules and hydrogen in the jets—potential food for microbes—making Enceladus one of the top destinations in the search for life elsewhere in the Solar System. ...As it orbits around Saturn, Enceladus experiences gravitational tidal forces that squeeze and heat it. ...According to the new study, led by Douglas Hemingway of the

Source:   By Paul Voosen, Science 2017-04-13. . . For GSS A Changing Cosmos chapter 7. Excerpt: In 2005, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft spied jets of water ice and vapor erupting into space from fissures on Enceladus, evidence of a salty ocean beneath the saturnian moon’s placid icy surface. Now, it turns out that the jets contain hydrogen gas, a sign of ongoing reactions on the floor of that alien sea. Because such chemistry provides energy for microbial life on Earth, the discovery makes Enceladus the top candidate for hosting life elsewhere in the solar system—besting even Jupiter’s Europa, another icy moon with an ocean. “We didn’t see microbes,” says Hunter Waite, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, and the lead author of a study published this week in Science. “But we saw their food.”... http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/food-microbes-abundant-enceladus