Phosphorus, a key element for life, found in Saturn's moon Enceladus

 Scientists have made a breakthrough discovery that could boost the chances of finding life beyond Earth. They have detected phosphorus, a vital element for life, in the ocean of Enceladus, one of Saturn's icy moons. The finding is reported in the journal Nature. 


Phosphorus is one of the six essential elements for life, along with carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and sulfur. It is used to build DNA, RNA and cell membranes, and is crucial for energy metabolism and cellular communication.


Enceladus is a small moon that has a global ocean of liquid water beneath its frozen surface. The ocean periodically erupts through cracks in the ice, sending plumes of water vapor and ice grains into space. These plumes were sampled by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, which orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017.


Using data from Cassini, researchers found traces of phosphorus in the form of sodium phosphates, a salt sometimes used in deli meat here on Earth, in the ice grains ejected by Enceladus.  This is the first time phosphorus has been found in an ocean outside Earth.


The researchers estimate that the concentration of phosphorus on Enceladus is at least 500 times higher than the highest known concentration in Earth's oceans. This suggests that the ocean of Enceladus has a rich supply of nutrients that could support life.


However, finding phosphorus does not mean that life exists on Enceladus or anywhere else in the solar system, outside of Earth. It only means that the moon has one of the necessary conditions for life to emerge and thrive.


The discovery of phosphorus adds to the growing evidence that Enceladus is one of the most promising places to look for alien life. The moon has also been found to have organic compounds, hydrothermal vents and a possible source of energy from tidal heating. 



Spacequanta blogs


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

BepiColombo snaps stunning views of Mercury during third flyby

Image
The European-Japanese BepiColombo mission, which is on its way to explore the mysteries of Mercury, has captured some breathtaking images of the planet during its third and closest flyby on June 19, 2023. The spacecraft flew within 150 miles (236 kilometers) of Mercury's surface at 3:34 p.m. EDT (1934 GMT), taking advantage of the planet's gravity to adjust its trajectory towards its final destination. During the flyby, BepiColombo collected data on Mercury's environment and geology, and sent them back to Earth. The European Space Agency (ESA) released the first of these new images on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after the closest approach. The images reveal a geology bounty: a plethora of craters, ancient volcanic ridges and lava flows. Image credit ESA, JAXA One of the most curious features in the images is a crater that has only just received a new name: Edna Manley , after a Jamaican/British artist who died in 1987. "During our image planning for the flyby, we reali...
Read more

Hubble reveals the dazzling stars of NGC 6544

Image
  The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a stunning image of the globular cluster NGC 6544 , a dense swarm of tens of thousands of stars that lies more than 8000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius . Globular clusters are ancient relics of the early universe, containing some of the oldest stars in the galaxy. They orbit around the center of the Milky Way, forming a spherical halo that extends far beyond the galactic disk. NGC 6544 is one of the closest globular clusters to the galactic plane, making it an interesting target for astronomers who want to study its origin and evolution. The image of NGC 6544 combines data from two of Hubble's instruments — the Advanced Camera for Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3 — as well as two separate astronomical observations. The first observation was designed to find a visible counterpart to the radio pulsar discovered in NGC 6544. A pulsar is the rapidly spinning remnant of a dead star, emitting twin beams of e...
Read more

First ever image of a multi-planet system around a Sun-like star

Image
Astronomers have captured the first ever image of a multi-planet system around a star similar to our Sun. The star, named TYC 8998-760-1, is located about 300 light-years away from Earth and is only 17 million years old. The image, taken by the SPHERE instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope, shows two giant exoplanets orbiting the star at distances of 160 and 320 astronomical units (au), respectively. For comparison, Neptune orbits the Sun at about 30 au. Image credit : eso The discovery, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters , is a milestone for direct imaging of exoplanets, which are planets outside our Solar System. Direct imaging is a challenging technique that requires blocking the bright light of the host star to reveal the fainter planets around it. Most of the exoplanets that have been directly imaged so far are either very young or very massive, and orbit very far from their stars. This makes them easier to detect, but also less representative of the majority of ...
Read more