Who says Earth gets all the life? Scientists look at Saturn's moon Enceladus as a possible hot spot for brewing the Good Stuff
In years past, Jupiter's moon Europa has received much attention for its interesting geological properties. Thought to conceal liquid water oceans somewhere beneath its icy surface, some scientists wish to explore the Luna-sized moon in search of life. At least life similar to what we know.
More recently, Saturn's tiny moon Enceladus has been in warm relations with planetary scientists for its unique geology. The 500 km diameter moon sports a giant geyser, spewing ice and other particles out into space to distances of 1,500 km. The ice spout helps feed Saturn's incredible rings.
There are two very important things to note about geysers made of ice particles. One is that if there's ice, especially water ice, that means there's, wait for it ... water. Similar to Europa, Enceladus may contain liquid or at least some semi-liquid form of water below its solid ice surface.
In addition, the 1,500 kilometer tall geyser indicates there is some sort of geothermal process occurring on the moon.
Enceladus' interesting processes could harbor life in one of the two classic "life begins here" theories; the primordial soup theory and the deep sea vent theory. Primordial soup is probably more familiar to most people. Having been theorized by Charles Darwin and subsequently tested and (somewhat) proven by Stanley L. Miller and Harold C. Urey, the life-goop theory has been taught in most life-science courses for the past few decades. A pool of seemingly innocuous chemicals, in reaction to some sort of catalyst, an electrical discharge is a likely culprit, spontaneously combine to create amino acids, the building blocks of life.
Enceladus' possible sub-surface water could harbor the necessary chemicals for this process to occur, along with the heat to drive chemical reactions. It does seem a little more far-fetched than Earth's life's foundation, but stranger things have been known to happen in the universe.
The deep sea vent theory seems a little more plausible for the Saturnian satellite. Various microbial and bacterial life exists on Earth which is mostly unlike much of the life we're accustomed to. These critters survive in very unique ecosystems, such as the high pressure, super-heated, random mineral filled plumes of debris spewing from deep sea hydrothermal vents, or fracture zones deep within the Earth's crust where no light, oxygen or organic input of any kind can reach them. While vent microbes feed on the various minerals in plumes, the deep earth variety have actually been shown to "eat" the radioactive decay of the rock they live in.
Such unique lifeforms may be more akin to what could exist on Europa or Encaldus. Their existing environments are nothing like what we know of on Earth, though the geo-sciences are theoretically easy enough to understand.
With Russia blasting off for Europa and Cassini granted the first of two possible mission extentions in Enceladus' neighborhood, we may know in the very near future just how possible it is for life to have evolved elsewhere in our solar system. Should traces be found of any such creatures, the idea that life, particularly intelligent life, may exist outside of our own little planetary whirlygig will be a bit easier to grasp.
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