Saturn's icy moon Enceladus harbours essential elements for life
The Hindu
High concentrations of phosphorus, an essential element for all biological processes on Earth, have been detected in ice crystals spewed from the ocean of Enceladus
High concentrations of phosphorus, an essential element for all biological processes on Earth, have been detected in ice crystals spewed from the interior ocean of Saturn's moon Enceladus, adding to its potential to harbour life, researchers reported on Wednesday.
The discovery was based on data collected by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, the first to orbit Saturn, during its 13-year landmark exploration of the gaseous giant planet, its rings and its moons from 2004 to 2017.
The findings were published by a German-led international team of scientists in the journal Nature and announced by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) outside of Los Angeles, which designed and built the Cassini probe.
The same team previously confirmed that Enceladus' ice grains contain a rich assortment of minerals and complex organic compounds, including the ingredients for amino acids, associated with life as scientists know it.
Also Read | What caused the present-day tilt of Saturn?
But phosphorus, the least abundant of six chemical elements considered necessary to all living things - the others are carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur - was still missing from the equation until now.
"It's the first time this essential element has been discovered in an ocean beyond Earth," the study's lead author, Frank Postberg, a planetary scientist at the Free University in Berlin, said in a JPL press release.
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