The latest data collected by the Cassini space probe confirm that hydrothermal activity existed under the icy crust of Enceladus, one of Saturn’s 60 moons. And this new information suggests the presence of an underground ocean, about 10 kilometers thick ; a situation that had already arisen before, due to the ice with sodium salt that emanates from the cracks of Enceladus and whose origin is supposed to be from the liquid water reservoirs that are under that frozen layer.
What is new is that this water is also hot and covers the entire surface of the white satellite under the 30-40 kilometer icy crust that covers this snowy satellite, according to research carried out by NASA and collected in the journal Nature .
Cassini, which has been studying the planet Saturn and all its moons since 2004, has facilitated the analysis of chemical compounds in the E ring, the largest on this planet; These compounds have turned out to be silicon dioxide (silica) nanoparticles associated with hydrothermal activity. This finding is the first evidence of active hydrothermal activity outside of Earth .
“The composition and size of these particles (from 2 to 8 nanometers in radius) indicate that they have been produced at more than 90 ºC in hydrothermal reactions associated with the global geothermal activity of the satellite, which rapidly transports the resulting products from the bottom of the ocean even the feathers or plumes of Enceladus, ”explains Sean Hsu of the University of Colorado at Boulder and leader of the study.
The strange thing is that, due to our current knowledge of astrobiology, that water should be frozen but, as Hsu tells the Sinc agency “it seems that there are some gaps in our knowledge about how the bodies of the solar system evolve”
The researchers do not rule out that at the time there were Extremophilic microorganisms in the Enceladus hot springs, such as those that we can find in the underwater vents of the Earth. However, they trust that the next investigations and space missions to the white moon of Saturn will reveal new secrets behind this peculiar subterranean ocean .
