Scientists consider possible life on Enceladus

Come take a swim in the Enceladen Ocean, where the waters are warm as your bathtub and rich in minerals - perfect for relaxation! Have you heard of this magical place? We assure you, it is very real - but getting there is a bit of a drive, and with gas prices being what they are...

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The Enceladen Ocean sounds like a tourist hotspot, and for NASA researchers, it is. To the rest of us, it's the solar system's most recently discovered ocean and it's about 800 million miles away from Earth on frozen Enceladus, one of Saturn's 66 moons. 

Enceladus is of particular interest to scientists because it's thought to be ripe for life. In fact, NASA scientists are calling it "The most habitable spot beyond Earth in the solar system for life as we know it."  

This week, NASA scientists announced the discovery of the Enceladen Ocean thanks to images from the Cassini spacecraft. Cassini has already spent several years navigating and looping its way around Saturn and its more than five-and-a-half dozen attendant moons. 

Astronomer William Herschel discovered Enceladus as a bright speck in a telescope in 1789.

Today, astronomers know Enceladus is bright because it's entirely covered with ice - ice that is constantly being refreshed by volcanic activity on the frozen world. And the very ice that makes Enceladus so bright is also the secret that has scientists concluding that a vast sea courses under the frozen surface. 

Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system, some nine times the size of Earth. The planet is so large that its moons experience extreme tidal forces that squeeze and flex their interiors, generating heat within their cores - heat that sometimes erupts through volcanoes on their surfaces.

Scientists believe a vast ocean rich in organic molecules - a sort of primordial soup, stews in the heat under the icy surface. Evidence for the ocean lies in the cracks and fissures that Cassini has photographed. Normally, a moon would be covered with dust and craters as it ages, which is the reason why most moons, like our own, look like they've been targets in a cosmic shooting gallery since the solar system formed (because they have been!). 

Enceladus is likewise cratered, but in some places the craters have disappeared under fresh sheets of ice which also make the moon appear cleaner and brighter than perhaps any other body in the solar system. This constant renewal is caused by ice sheets which crack under tidal strain and then "heal" as they are filled with water and freeze anew. 

This phenomenon is only possible if a liquid ocean exists below the surface. 

And that ocean may be quite warm once you get below the ice. Scientists even think the water could be as warm as your bathtub - to boiling at greater depths. Combine the organic molecules that saturate the ocean and you have conditions they say are ripe for life. 

These organic molecules, carbon dioxide, monoxide, and hydrocarbons have been detected in dramatic jets of vapor spewing from fissures on the planet's surface.

Scientists aren't saying they've found life, nor are they making any statements that come remotely close to such a declaration. However, they feel the location could be one of the most likely spots to find it - if it exists beyond Earth. 

Almost everything about the place coincides with what scientists believe about the physical origin of organic life. 

Unfortunately, the Cassini probe is not equipped to actually detect microbial life in the Enceladen Ocean. For that determination to be made, scientists will have to design, fund, build, and successfully send a probe to the moon to conduct tests and see if life has developed. The results of such a mission, if it can ever be launched, would have tremendous implications for our understanding of the universe and our place within it. 

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