Enceladus, Saturn's tiny, icy satellite, is one of the top candidates for a habitable world within the solar system. And now scientists believe that we will be able to verify the presence of life forms on it without even landing on the surface.
Of Saturn's 82 satellites, Enceladus is one of the most mysterious. Its continuing geological activity and abundant surface water make it, according to some astronomers, the most habitable place in the solar system.
And no wonder: beneath the thick layer of ice covering the satellite's surface lurks a warm, salty ocean that emits methane, a gas that, on Earth, is usually a reliable indicator of the presence of microbial life. But in the case of Enceladus, the surest way to establish the presence of life on it is to get a space probe to land and take samples... Or is it?
An international team of American and French astronomers believes that a probe landing (and the resulting risk of introducing terrestrial microorganisms) is not necessary: it is sufficient to fly over the surface of the satellite several times and analyze the composition of the gases it emits. This will determine with certainty the presence of life on Enceladus and will eliminate the need to develop a probe capable of penetrating through the multimeter thickness of the ice.
The researchers suggest that, given the already collected data on the composition of the subglacial ocean biomass residents of Enceladus will be small, and the more dangerous to expose the alien ecosystem at risk of collision with alien microorganisms. They call the south pole of Enceladus the most promising for data collection, where at least a hundred geysers burst through cracks in the ice sheet, the plume from which is visible even from space.
Unfortunately, this way of studying will not allow us to see Enceladus microbes "live", although scientists have some idea of what they look like. Since sunlight hardly penetrates under the thick ice layer, probably, Enceladus inhabitants get their energy from hydrothermal sources, such as "smokestacks" existing at the bottom of the world's oceans, whose main population are chemosynthetic bacteria.
