Saturn’s moon has molecules and energy to generate life, says study – 12/17/2023 – Sideral Messenger

A reanalysis of data collected by the Cassini probe when flying over the water plumes of Enceladus indicates that this small moon of Saturn has even greater potential for the emergence and maintenance of life than previously imagined.

It is true that Enceladus has caused a sensation among astrobiologists since 2005, when it was discovered that fissures in its frozen surface give way to geysers of water that are ejected into space. These plumes come directly from an ocean that hides beneath the ice crust.

In 2017, the final year of the Cassini mission, analyzes of the probe’s passages through the plume indicated that, in addition to water, it contained substances such as methane, ammonia and molecular hydrogen. All of this together indicated that Enceladus’ ocean floor has hydrothermal vents – an environment where life is suspected to have emerged on Earth – and could even be direct evidence of life, as terrestrial methanogenic organisms are known to consume hydrogen and emit hydrogen. methane.

In 2021, a mathematical analysis of the contents of the plumes by French scientists indicated that the methane there cannot be explained solely by known abiotic production methods, suggesting that either Enceladus has methanogenic life, or there is another source, currently unknown. , emitting the methane present in the plumes.

As if that wasn’t already exciting enough, now a trio of researchers from JPL (NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory) in Pasadena, California, have reprocessed the data collected by Cassini as it crossed the plumes and found evidence of hydrogen cyanide and oxygen. molecular.

The first of these compounds is considered one of the main tools in the kit of simple compounds used by nature to emerge more complex chemistry, the precursor of life. According to Jonah Peter, first author of the study published in the British journal Nature Astronomy, hydrogen cyanide is the “Swiss army knife of amino acid precursors”, which in turn are the basis for proteins, molecules central to life as we know it.

The second, in turn, is a much more powerful source of chemical energy than the modest molecular hydrogen that powers methanogens. “If methanogenesis is like a small watch battery in terms of energy, our results suggest that Enceladus’ ocean may offer something more akin to a car battery, capable of providing large amounts of energy to any life form that is present. present”, says Peter.

The prospects that this small moon with a modest 504 km in diameter could harbor life or is even currently gestating its emergence are exciting. But, of course, the big question remains: is there really anything alive there? We don’t know, and it’s quite possible that the answers can only be obtained when a new probe is sent to Saturn to analyze the composition of the plumes more precisely than Cassini – which unfortunately doesn’t yet have a date to happen.

This column is published on Mondays in print, in Folha Corrida.

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