2023-06-18 22:07:05
It has been found that the sea water of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, whose entire surface is covered with ice, contains phosphorus in the form of high concentrations of phosphates, an essential material for life.
An international research team led by Dr. Frank Postwerk at the Free University of Berlin in Germany published an article in the scientific journal Nature on the 15th and analyzed observational data from NASA’s Saturn probe Cassini. The concentration was found to be more than 100 times higher than that of the Earth’s oceans.
Enceladus, the sixth largest of Saturn’s 145 moons, has a surface covered in ice. Scientists have found organic substances necessary for life in ice grains ejected through ice cracks, but opinions differ on the existence of phosphorus.
In this study, the research team observed ice grains and water vapor ejected from cracks on the ice surface of Enceladus by the cosmic dust analyzer (CDA) mounted on Cassini, which flew around Saturn from 2004 to 2017 and conducted exploration activities. analyzed.
As a result, it was found that the salt-rich ice grains contained a large amount of sodium phosphate. In addition, in a similar environmental model experiment conducted in the laboratory, it was revealed that phosphorus is likely to exist in the form of phosphate in the sea of Enceladus.
Dr. Christopher Glein of the Southwest Research Institute (SWRI), a co-researcher, said, “As a result of the 2020 geochemical model experiment, it was estimated that there would be a lot of phosphorus in the Enceladus sea. did,” he said.
“Phosphate concentrations in Enceladus’ waters were at least 100 times higher than in Earth’s oceans,” he said.
In the meantime, studies of planets in the solar system have confirmed a number of places where there is an ocean under the surface of the ice. Jupiter’s moon Europa, Saturn’s moons Titan, Enceladus, and Pluto belong to this category, and scientists have paid attention to the possibility that life exists in a liquid ocean under ice.
“The high phosphate concentrations in Enceladus’ waters appear to be due to the high solubility of phosphate minerals in the sea,” said Dr. Glein. “We’re going to Doos and seeing if there’s a real life-like ocean there.”
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