Enceladus : A story of a body filled with the potential of supporting alien life.

March 28, 2020

Enceladus : A story of a body filled with the potential of supporting alien life.

July 1, 2004. For the very first time, a man-made spacecraft entered the orbit of the ring planet, the second-largest gas giant called Saturn. Opening a new way, a new angel for studying one of the beautiful celestial bodies of our own backyard of the cosmos. The craft was named Cassini, after the name of astronomer Giovanni Cassini.

"The water seems inviting

The ocean calls"

- Carl Sagan(Cosmos)

Saturn and Enceladus.

The mission was a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Italian Space Agency (ISA). The main objective was to study the planet Saturn, including the rings and the moons. In this whole mission, the discovery which drove me crazy was the discoveries made on Saturn's gorgeous and terribly beautiful moon "Enceladus". I've never imagined that this young lady, who is so far away from the sun and orbiting the ring planet, could have the potential of supporting life.

15 October 1997, 08:43:00 UTC. The mighty Titan IV(401) B B-33 rocket achieved a lift off from Cape Canaveral SLC 40 carrying NASA's Cassini probe and the ESA's Huygens lander, which later landed on the surface of Saturn's biggest moon Titan. Well, that thing deserves a whole new blog, so we are not gonna talk about it today.

Dawn of a new world:

After traveling blind in deep space for seven years, the moment of truth arrived. On the way, Cassini made fly-bys of Venus, the Earth, the Jupiter to receive gravitational "kicks" that boosted its speed to more than 42,500 mph. Finally, Cassini entered the orbit of Saturn on July 1, 2004. After orbiting Saturn for 231 days, Cassini had its first close flyby of Enceladus on February 17, 2005. Then the magnetometer team of Cassini noticed something unusual with the magnetic field of Saturn. It was being deflected to the side.

A graphical image of the Magnetic field.

Cassini saw there was something coming out of the south pole. But as it is so unusual because Enceladus is quite so small for any kind of geothermal activity as far as we know, scientists thought that it might be a camera artifact. When you look at Enceladus it kinda looks like it's covered with snow. There are fractures mountains, chasms. But Enceladus's south pole had something dramatic for us. It is where all kinds of activities were going on.

Southpole of Enceladus.

The team found something extraordinary. Row after row of enormous geysers shooting water and ice crystals out into space from the icy surface. That's crazy! Because the south pole was acting like a big geothermal field. It was as crazy as saying Earth's north pole is hotter than the equator.

Scientists say that the geothermal activity melts ice into water and that water mixes up with ammonia and lowers its melting point and shoots up into space.

Now comes the most important question. What makes Enceladus suitable for extraterrestrial life?

To answer this question let's look at how life formed on Earth. When Earth was at her young age, she was too hot to support life but eventually, the temperature went down and all the ingredients for life appeared. We had an energy source, we had water, organic compounds, Nitrogen, and everything you need to form life. And that is what we found on the south pole of Enceladus. There's an energy source, there is a water source, there's an organic material source, there is a Nitrogen source. And we have all the requirements for life. This little moon (Discovered by William Herschel; Discovery date: August 28, 1789) has it all. Enceladus's south pole is like organic soup.

On Earth, geysers and hot springs are home to bacteria. So yes, there is a lot of evidence indicating the chances of life formation on Enceladus. That is why this tiny moon of Saturn has become a "must go" place in the outer solar system.

That is not all! Through the Cassini mission, we now know how these icy crystals (which came out of Enceladus's south pole) formed one of Saturn's rings. There is yet a lot to discover.

Icy crystals that came out of Enceladus's south pole formed the outermost ring.

Who knows? There might be life waiting for us.

I will draw the ending line with Sir Stephen Hawking's words-

"So remember to look up at the stars and not at your feet, try to make sense of what you see and wonder what makes the universe exist.
Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you just don't give up."
- Prof. Stephen Hawking.

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Published by: Prihtul Das