Saturn’s moon Enceladus is home to an ocean of melted water beneath its surface, and could be a source for alien microbes, scientists said on Thursday.
The first measurements of the subsurface water at the south pole of the small and icy moon were made by the US space agency’s Cassini spacecraft, and are described in the journal Science.
The body of water is about the size of Lake Superior, the second-largest lake on Earth, and has a rocky bottom that could create conditions that allow tiny life forms to thrive.
Photo: Reuters
Researchers first raised the possibility of a below-ground ocean on Enceladus in 2005, after water vapor was detected spewing from vents near the moon’s southern pole.
“Material from Enceladus’ south polar jets contains salty water and organic molecules, the basic chemical ingredients for life,” said Linda Spilker, Cassini project scientist at NASA.
“Their discovery expanded our view of the ‘habitable zone’ within our solar system and in planetary systems of other stars,” she said.
“This new validation that an ocean of water underlies the jets furthers understanding about this intriguing environment,” she said.
The Cassini spacecraft detected the shape of Enceladus’ gravity field during three flybys from 2010 to 2012. The gravitational tug exerted on the unmanned orbiter was carefully analyzed for clues about what the interior of Enceladus contained.
Researchers believe the 500km-wide moon’s ocean is encased beneath a thick crust of crystal ice.
“For the first time, we have used a geophysical method to determine the internal structure of Enceladus,” said co-author David Stevenson, professor of planetary science at Caltech.
“This then provides one possible story to explain why water is gushing out of these fractures we see at the south pole,” he said.
The Cassini mission is led by NASA, with the cooperation of the Italian Space Agency and European Space Agency.
The spacecraft was launched 2004 and has visited all of Saturn’s largest moons.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion