Artistic depiction of the hydrothermal activity under Enceladus' subsurface oceanNASA/JPL-CALTECH
Vaporous plumes erupt from between the cracks on the icy exterior of the subsurface ocean on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s many moons. These geysers contain molecular hydrogen, a potential source of energy for microbial life, researchers reported last week (April 14) in Science.
With NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, scientists have been exploring Saturn for more than a decade, and a key question during these missions has been whether the moon contained molecular hydrogen, an energy source for microbes. In October 2015, during the latest flyby through the plumes, scientists sampled and measured the jet’s chemical constituents, finding that 0.4 percent to 1.4 percent contained molecular hydrogen (H2).
“Combined with our knowledge that there’s an ocean under Enceladus, that it’s salty, that it contains organics and mineral ...
