Fresh Tiger Stripes on Saturns Enceladus
Explanation:
How will humanity first
learn of extraterrestrial life?
One possibility is to find it under the icy surface of Saturn's moon
Enceladus.
A reason to think that life may exist there are
long features -- dubbed tiger stripes -- that are known to be
spewing ice from the moon's icy interior into space.
These surface cracks create clouds of fine ice particles
over the moon's South Pole and create
Saturn's
mysterious
E-ring.
Evidence for this has come from the
robot Cassini spacecraft that orbited
Saturn from 2004 to 2017.
Pictured here,
a high resolution image of
Enceladus is shown from a close flyby.
The unusual surface
tiger
stripes are shown in false-color blue.
Why
Enceladus is active remains a mystery, as the neighboring moon
Mimas, approximately the same size, appears
quite dead.
A recent
analysis of
ejected ice grains
has yielded evidence that complex organic molecules exist inside Enceladus.
These large carbon-rich
molecules
bolster -- but do not prove --
that oceans under Enceladus' surface could
contain life.
Another
Solar System moon that might contain
underground life is
Europa.
Experts Debate:
How will humanity first
discover ET life?
Authors & editors:
Robert Nemiroff
(MTU) &
Jerry Bonnell
(USRA)
NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings,
and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris.
Specific
rights apply.
A service of:
LHEA at
NASA /
GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
