From space, Saturn’s moon Enceladus might not seem like a hospitable place for life. Its cold surface is caked thick with fresh ice, marked by craters and active cryovolcanoes that spew ice crystals. But scientists believe beneath that frozen exterior hides a salty liquid ocean. With energy from geothermal vents on the ocean floor, and a smattering of the right ingredients, it might just provide a place for life to evolve and take hold. A new analysis of data from NASA’s Cassini mission reveals that the moon has, in theory, all the chemicals it needs to support living things.
Plumes of water erupting from Enceladus contain phosphorus, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature by an international team of researchers. They found the phosphorus by examining data collected by the Cassini probe from its 13-year survey of the Saturian system. It’s the first time this element—an essential component of being alive—has been found in an ocean not on Earth.
“Phosphorus in the form of phosphates is vital for all life on Earth,” says study author Frank Postberg, a planetary scientist at the Free University of Berlin. “Life as we know it would simply not exist without phosphates. And we have no reason to assume that potential life at Enceladus—if it is there—should be fundamentally different from Earth’s.”
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