Production: Adriana Toca
Enceladus is not the largest moon of Saturn – Titan holds this title – but it is the brightest. It is a frozen world that presumably has a liquid ocean inside. (The same happens with Europa, another moon in our solar system, but which has another host: it is the sixth moon of the gas giant, and the largest in our solar system, Jupiter).
The characteristics of Enceladus are exciting for the scientific community because they make this moon a strong candidate to host extraterrestrial life forms. And we are not only talking about microorganisms that can survive in the most extreme conditions (as with the recent news of the possible discovery of phosphane on Venus, a residue produced by hypothetical bacteria), but that Enceladus would have the potential to host somewhat life forms. more complex, aquatic, living under the ice. The water in the interior ocean of Enceladus would be warm, a circumstance promoted by the gravitational forces of the huge planet it orbits. That is, Saturn would be agitating the interior ocean of Enceladus causing it to heat up, and that there are even hydrothermal waters.
Enceladus’ potential habitability
And why do scientists think Enceladus could be habitable? Scientists announced in 2017 the detection of significant amounts of hydrogen in Enceladus. Of the geysers, it was determined that 98 percent is water, and the rest is a mixture of other molecules, including carbon dioxide, methane and ammonia.
The detection of a large amount of hydrogen strongly suggests a continuous hydrothermal process, in which the groundwater of Enceladus would interact with rocks and organic compounds. This detected chemistry is similar to that created by hydrothermal vents in Earth’s oceans, and could be used as an energy source for life forms, if they live in the ocean of Enceladus.
The latest exciting discovery around Enceladus was announced in September 2020, and it is the most detailed infrared image to date, obtained from Cassini data, before its Grand Finale. These images clearly show the geological activity of the south pole, in the form of the aforementioned ‘tiger stripes’. The images indicate the presence of fresh ice also in the northern hemisphere, so the geological processes that we have mentioned could also occur in the northern region, and not only in the south.
