2023-05-25 00:59:59
The James Webb Space Telescope has just captured on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s most promising moons, a gigantic column of water vapor squirting from its subterranean ocean through icy cracks on the surface. According to the researchers, the geyser, the largest observed so far, could contain the chemical ingredients of life. The unusual eruption, recorded by James Webb in November 2022, was revealed just a few days ago, during a conference at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which was echoed by the magazine ‘Nature‘.
Already in 2005, NASA’s Cassini probe observed how icy particles escaped into space in the form of ‘jets’, jets that emerged from deep cracks in the icy surface of Enceladus. But the new data reveals that the material is reaching much farther into space this time than before, at a distance equivalent to many times the diameter of Saturn’s moon, which is 504 km.
“It’s huge,” Sara Faggi, a planetary astronomer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said during the conference. The researcher said that all the details of the finding will be published “very soon” in a scientific article.
A place for life?
Enceladus has intrigued astronomers for years because it is one of the few ‘ocean worlds’ in the Solar System, making it one of the best places to look for life outside of Earth. Several decades of observations and measurements have already revealed that under the thick layer of ice on its surface, some 30 to 40 km thick, Enceladus harbors a large ocean that completely surrounds it.
The recent discovery of evidence indicating the presence of hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, similar to those found on Earth, makes scientists think that these waters could be a suitable refuge for life. And not just in a microbial form, but even from more complex animals.
Oceanic material emanating from Enceladus’s geysers, mainly through fractures known as ‘tiger stripes’ around the moon’s south pole, thus constitutes a direct link to this potential extraterrestrial ecosystem. The plumes observed by Cassini contained silica particles that were likely carried from the seafloor by strong currents. Cassini flew through these plumes many times, measuring ice grains and chemicals beneficial to life, such as methane, carbon dioxide, and ammonia.
In less than five minutes
But it took James Webb, many millions of km from Enceladus, to discover something that the Cassini mission, from its front row seat, failed to see. The sensitivity of the instruments of the new telescope, in fact, were able to capture the particles thrown into space by geysers at a distance from the moon that has surprised scientists.
It was last November 9 when James Webb briefly ‘peeked’ at Enceladus, collecting data for just 4.5 minutes. Little time, but more than enough to reveal the presence of an enormous and icy column of water vapor projecting into space from the surface. In the future article announced by Faggi, the exact amount of water expelled and the temperature at which it is found will be known.
Jmes Webb, Faggi explains, also analyzed the spectrum of sunlight reflecting off Enceladus, and found evidence of many chemicals, including water, and other compounds that could indicate geological or biological activity in the Saturnian moon’s ocean. And we have many more surprises”, announced the researcher.
new observations
During the next few months, according to the list of observations that will be carried out during the second round of work by the space telescope, James Webb will once again focus on Enceladus, and this time he will do so for much longer. His goal will be to find chemical and organic compounds associated with habitability, such as hydrogen peroxide. Together with the recently revealed data, those obtained in the near future will be definitive for the development of a future mission to land on Enceladus and explore it, for the first time, ‘in situ’.
Other icy moons in our planetary system will also receive the attention of the space telescope. During the same conference, in fact, the planetary scientist Gerónimo Villanueva, from the Goddard Space Flight Center, reported that James Webb had also detected carbon dioxide on the Jupiter moon Europa. Something really exciting, because carbon and oxygen are two essential components for life on Earth. NASA will launch a mission to Europa next year to explore that ocean world in more detail. “This is definitely a new era in the exploration of the Solar System,” Villanueva said.
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