What Makes Enceladus so Attractive in the Search for Life in Space?
Enceladus is considered to be one of the most promising places to search for extraterrestrial life in our solar system. Researchers suspect that under the moon’s icy crust there is a global ocean of liquid water and a rocky core further below. Due to cryovolcanic activity, gigantic plumes break through cracks in the crust at the moon’s south pole, ejecting ice particles hundreds of kilometers into space.
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft passed through these plumes multiple times to analyze its composition. Enceladus’s ocean is the only extraterrestrial “body of water” from which scientists have been able to directly analyze samples. The samples revealed traces of various salts and organic compounds. Furthermore, previous analyses conducted by Cassini gave indications of hydrothermal processes on the seafloor and other conditions that are significant in supporting life.
So it seems the people whose job it is to study these things do have reason to think it might exist.
Why not? Friction from tidal forces keeps the moon got enough to contain liquid water under its ice cover. This makes it similar to Europa in some ways.
But there's no reason to think that it does.
So it seems the people whose job it is to study these things do have reason to think it might exist.
Why not? Friction from tidal forces keeps the moon got enough to contain liquid water under its ice cover. This makes it similar to Europa in some ways.