BRENT: According to a new research Enceladus that is a moon of Saturn may have contained a subsurface ocean. Experts say that it means that the moon can be habitable.
NASA’s Cassino spacecraft has made observations of the moon and revealed that one of the giant planet’s moons might have experienced hydrothermal activity beneath its icy surface. The evidence is based on formation of rocky particles that might have formed as a result of chemical reactions between hot water and rock.
Sean Hsu is a researcher at the University of Colorado Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and also is the leader of the study. He said that for this type of chemical reaction to happen, the water should have a temperature up to 190 degrees Farenheit or warmer than that.
“We report an analysis of silicon-rich, nanometre-sized dust particles (so-called stream particles) that stand out from the water-ice-dominated objects characteristic of Saturn,” Hsu and his colleagues wrote for the March 11 issue of the scientific journal Nature.
“We interpret these grains as nanometre-sized SiO2(silica) particles, initially embedded in icy grains emitted from Enceladus’ subsurface waters and released by sputter erosion in Saturn’s E ring.”
Hydrothermal activity happens when seawater reacts with rocky crust and after that emerges as a warm and mineral-laden solution. It naturally occurs in oceans on Earth. Research paper by Hsu and another study that was published in the Geophysical Research Letters indicate that Enceladus might have had similar active processes.
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