2023-06-16 15:00:00
An international team led by planetary scientist Frank Postberg of the Free University of Berlin, has identified compounds that contain phosphates in the vapor expelled by Enceladusan oceanic moon of Saturn and the Solar System object with the highest ratio of liquid water to its mass.
The amounts discovered indicate that there could be concentrations more than 100 times higher than those present on Earth.
Plasma waves between Saturn and Enceladus
This implies that we now have new evidence to understand the ocean worlds in the solar system and beyond. And since phosphorus is one of the six elements considered essential for life as we know it, based on water and organic chemistry, his finding considerably increases the probability of existence of life on Enceladus.
WHY ARE PHOSPHATES IMPORTANT?
The finding was made possible thanks to NASA’s Cassini mission, which for 13 years explored Saturn and its ring system and was able to analyze samples through a geyser of ice and gases that rose directly from fissures in the frozen surface of Saturn. Moon. Thanks to this information it is like phosphorus has been detected in the form of phosphates originating from this ice-covered ocean.
Life depends on phosphorous compounds, without which it could not exist. This reality began to be verified a century after its discovery (it was discovered in 1669 by Henning Brandt in the German city of Hamburg).
The moon Enceladus was turned upside down by an asteroid impact
It was the Swedes Carl Scheele and Johan Gahn who managed to prove that phosphorus is one of the main components of bones. Its derivatives combined with oxygen, known as phosphates, play a crucial role in the maintenance of life, since it constitutes an essential part of the framework or structure of the molecules that carry genetic information, such as DNA or RNA.
In the absence of phosphate, the formation and evolution of what we call an informational polymer is not possible, that is, a substance capable of containing the necessary information, that can be replicated, translated and perform genetic transmission. Phosphate is also vital in cellular energy management.
The other five of the six critical elements (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur) had already been identified in emissions from Enceladus, although the detection of sulfur is provisional.
WORLDS WITH INTERNAL OCEANS
Enceladus is one of Saturn’s largest moons and one of the brightest objects in our solar system due to its icy surface, which reflects most of the sunlight it receives. It was discovered in 1789 by the British astronomer William Herschel.
NASA
Five moons of Saturn captured by the Cassini spacecraft.
One of the most significant findings in recent planetary science is that worlds harboring oceans under a surface cover of ice are common in our solar system. These worlds with internal oceans, sometimes referred to as “ocean worlds” or “ocean moons”, include, in addition to Enceladus:
Europa: Jupiter’s moon Europa is one of the most promising places in the search for life in our Solar System because of its subsurface ocean of liquid water, which can contain more than twice as much water as all of Earth’s oceans combined.
Ganymede: Also a moon of Jupiter, Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system and is unique in having its own magnetic field. The data suggests that Ganymede may have a saltwater ocean 200 kilometers below its surface.
Titan: Saturn’s largest moon Titan has seas and lakes of liquid hydrocarbons on its surface, but it could also harbor an ocean of water and ammonia beneath its surface.
Thus, while planets with oceans on their surfaces, like Earth, must be within a limited range of distances from their stars to maintain temperatures that allow liquid water to exist on the surface, worlds with internal oceans can exist on a much wider range of distances, greatly increasing the number of potentially habitable worlds that could be found throughout the galaxy.
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