Life on Enceladus ? Cassini Photographs Gushing Geysers.

The jets emanate from hot fissures known as "tiger stripes" at the south pole


The observations was made over the 27 and 28th of March as the Cassini spacecraft made its closest pass yet over the south pole of Enceladus at a distance of just 46 miles , scientists say Cassini got to "taste" the jets of water vapour and ice that the moon spews forth into space .

The encounter was primarily designed for Cassini's ion and neutral mass spectrometer instrument, which sampled the composition of Enceladus's south polar plume.
Other instruments, including the Cassini plasma spectrometer and composite infrared spectrometer, also took measurements.
Before the closest approach to Enceladus, Cassini's onboard cameras captured images of the geysers, which contain organic compounds along with the ice and vapour.

"In the end, it's the most promising place I know of for an astrobiology search. We don't even need to go scratching around on the surface. We can fly through the plume and sample it. Or we can land on the surface, look up and stick our tongues out."

I find this particularly interesting

"Cassini has flown several times now through this spray and has tasted it. And we have found that aside from water and organic material, there is salt in the icy particles. The salinity is the same as that of Earth's oceans," said Dr Carolyn Porco, head of the imaging team on Cassini.

Organic compounds in an Ocean no more saline than our own !
And then this.....

The habitable zone on Enceladus might be comparatively easy to access by future robotic space missions. Dr Porco added: "It's erupting out into space where we can sample it. It sounds crazy but it could be snowing microbes on the surface of this little world

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www.bbc.co.uk...

"The kind of ecologies Enceladus might harbour could be like those deep within our own planet," Dr Porco said in an interview with Nasa's science website
science.nasa.gov...

I think that the discovery we're all waiting for is getting ever closer as targets for finding life within our own Solar System are becoming more defined

Dramatic plumes, both large and small, spray water ice from many locations near the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus. More than 30 individual jets of different sizes can be seen in this image

i think its amazing how close relatively speaking that is with possible life on it

reply to post by Zanbaktouofknowledge


I think its just another hint that when we get serious about searching for life in out solar system we are likely to find it in many places .
Checking out Enceladus's Geysers for signs of life has got to be an easier prospect than drilling through the ice shell of Europa .

Something has got to be wrong with their instruments.

The next thing you know these scientists will be telling us the earth is neither flat nor the center of the universe.

There is no life any where but here.

We are alone and we are the supreme creation !!!!!


[ Just thought I would get this said and out of the way.]

reply to post by hdutton

post by hdutton
We are alone and we are the supreme creation !!!!!

If that was the case what a sad joke the Universe would be .

Nice. Two threads were posted on this a few days ago.

Interesting though.

I posted this the other day but nobody seemed to care. It seems the incident in Florida has taken everyones common sense and flushed it down the toilet. I hope they do find life there even though i'm sure they will lie about what they find.

Here is the thread I made. www.abovetopsecret.com...