Deep under its frozen primordial oceans, Saturn’s moon Enceladus may conceal the building blocks for life, according to recent research. The finding raises exciting new questions about whether mankind is alone in the cosmos.
Scouring vast amounts of data transmitted by NASA’s Cassini probe, researchers discovered Enceladus was emitting “new kinds of organic compounds” in ice plumes ejected from its subsurface oceans. The substances could make “ideal precursors” for the “synthesis of biologically relevant organic compounds,” including amino acids, which make up proteins and play a litany of other roles in life as Earthlings know it.
“We don’t yet know if amino acids are needed for life beyond Earth, but finding the molecules that form amino acids is an important piece of the puzzle,” Nozair Khawaja, who headed up the research team, said in a press release.
https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/489/4/5231/5573821/