Can Alien Life Forms Exist on Saturn's Icy-Moon Enceladus?

On Aug 28th, 1789, an English astronomer named William Herschel used his 40-foot telescope for the first time, then the largest in the world and discovered a saturn's moon named Enceladus which means 'Giant' in Greek mythology. But little was known about it until the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecrafts of NASA passed nearby in the early 1980s. Pictures from Voyager revealed that Enceladus is 500 km across is remarkably smooth in some places and had relatively few craters which means that the moon is relatively younger (fewer impacts) and geologically active.

Enceladus was interesting, but no one knew how interesting it was when until Cassini spacecraft got there in 2004 after travelling 7 years in space to explore Saturnian system. Enceladus was thought to be a dead frozen world, but Cassini revealed the world is alive and many features are earth-like.

Cassini made its 4th flyby around Enceladus on July 14th,2005 where spacecraft came within 175 km above the surface - closer than any spacecraft had ever gone. Cassini spacecraft witnessed amazing features on the south pole of the enceladus where plumes of water vapor, ice-particles, gas and organic molecules spraying out into space at more than100 km above the surface at speed up to 2189 kmph. Cassini travelled through these plumes adventurioulsy and collected data through science instruments.When scientists studied cassini data in detail , they discovered that underneath the icy-surface of 30-40 km thickness, there is a liquid global ocean with 10 km deep is present with possible deep hydrothermal vents similar to oceans on earth. Deep inside the ocean, Volcanoes release hot material made of sulphur and other molecules into ocean which covert into organic molecules. These organic molecules form into amino acids which are the building blocks of life. Enceladus presents right conditions for life to evolve. If even a few small microbes were found in its waters, it would be one of the greatest scientific findings of all time. Cassini spacecraft after 13 year mission, was intentionally crashed into Saturn on Sep 15th,2017 to avoid hitting the moons enceladus, titan and other potentially habitable moons. This is to prevent contaminating these moons with earth microbes.

NASA is planning to send another robotic spacecraft to Enceladus to solve the mystery.

Sreekanth Panjala
Science Popularizer | Author