All the building blocks for life have been found for the first time away from Earth, NASA announced – within our solar system. Hunt for alien life is set to begin on Enceladus, Saturn’s sixth largest moon, after Cassini’s deepest ever dive into its cracks found hydrogen gas. NASA
We are possibly at the verge of the most exciting discovery in human history. We have known that most of the elements necessary for life are available on Saturn’s largest moon and just yesterday the Cassini backed up by the Hubble Telescope spacecraft confirmed that the necessary elements and favorable conditions are available all in one place, on a second moon Enceladus. There could be microbial life on Enceladus sea bed. In it’s entire 13 year mission of amazing discoveries this is the most exciting science yet from Cassini and possibly from any spacecraft ever.
The Daily Mail
The space agency said that practically all the elements needed for life had been discovered in the same place in our solar system – on one of Saturn’s icy moons.
The missing ingredient, hydrogen, was discovered for the first time on Enceladus during the deepest ever dive by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft.
This hydrogen is now said to be ‘a potential source of chemical energy that could support microbes on the seafloor of Enceladus,’ the researchers revealed during a NASA press conference yesterday.
After 13 years exploring Saturn, the craft dove into high-powered jets of water spewing from the moon’s surface, where it found hydrogen gas.
The gas is the final piece of the puzzle following the discovery of water in an ocean under Enceladus’s surface.
It means Saturn’s sixth moon may have the same single-celled organisms with which life began on Earth, or more complex creatures still.
Why Hydrogen Vents are Important?
According to researchers, the only plausible source of this gas could be hydrothermal reactions between hot rocks and water in the ocean beneath the icy surface.
This same process, on Earth, provides energy for entire ecosystems around hydrothermal vents.
As a result, the researcher say there could be volatile species in these deep oceans.
I propose that while they are exciting, manned missions to the Moon and Mars are in reality just exercises in engineering. Yes there will be some discoveries but in general it’s just a matter of applying the necessary thrust in the correct direction to lift X amount of weight into the proper orbit. The rest is just packing and shipping people instead of instruments. We will no doubt get there at some time but is it really a priority or like the Apollo project more or less a stunt.
As of yesterday the most significant science fair project ever just became possible, a reasonable chance to verify within the next 10 years that we are not alone. If there is life, even in its most rudimentary form, within our own solar system its unthinkable that some of the billions of billions of other stellar systems wouldn’t also have life.
Beginning today there should be no greater mission of discovery within our planetary neighborhood than the full exploration of the moons of Saturn for life. What could be more exciting and if we are thinking about expanding into the the universe as a species, more valuable than to know that other life exists? When we find life it would almost inevitably be easier to adapt to that environment than rehab a dead or nearly dead world like the Moon or Mars.
These and other full size NASA Images, a NASA produced video and with many more details are available at The Daily Mail.
Much more Information, pictures and speculation about possible missions at Science.Com.
UPDATE: The lead picture is Jupiter not Saturn. It was taken by the Juno Craft in 2016. The headline from the source was misleading. The rest of the information about the Cassini discover is also posted at Space.Com if you doubt Daily Mail’s veracity. There are discussions at NASA as to how to proceed.