The Cassini spacecraft captured this image while observing the south pole of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus on November 30, 2010. Jets of water from the moon's subsurface ocean are visible escaping through cracks in the ice. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)
Scientists have found that the molecular building blocks needed for life are “readily accessible” on Saturn's icy moon Enceladus.
At just 314 miles (505 kilometers) wide, Enceladus could fit inside Colorado, and with its liquid water, hydrothermal energy source, and chemical arsenal, it has the potential to harbor extraterrestrial life.
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However, most of these studies focused on relatively old ice grains deposited in Saturn's E ring—a diffuse ring outside the planet's bright main rings—after being ejected decades or centuries earlier. This meant scientists couldn't be sure that these compounds actually came from Enceladus and weren't the result of space weathering within the ring.
Astronomers have discovered organic molecules, possibly containing nitrogen and oxygen, in fresh ice particles spewed from Saturn's icy moon. The new study was published Wednesday (October 1) in the journal Nature Astronomy.
Secrets of the Ice Moon
In 2008, when Cassini flew through a geyser of freshly ejected icy particles from Enceladus, it collected data on the spray covering the spacecraft's cosmic dust analyzer. These particles struck the spacecraft at 18 kilometers per second (11 miles per second), so fast that water molecules didn't have time to clump together. This allowed the team to detect “previously hidden signals,” said study co-author Nozair Khawaja, a planetary scientist at the Free University of Berlin.
Researchers used mass spectrometry to analyze the chemical composition of molecules in fresh ice grains. They discovered chemical compounds that, on Earth, participate in reactions leading to the formation of complex molecules essential for life, including structures potentially containing nitrogen and oxygen.
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“These molecules, which we found in the freshly ejected material, prove that the complex organic molecules discovered by Cassini in Saturn's E ring are not just the product of long-term residence in space, but are also readily present in Enceladus's ocean,” said study co-author Frank Postberg, a professor of planetary science at the Free University of Berlin.
Nozair noted that there are various ways these molecules could become biologically significant, “raising the likelihood that the moon is habitable.” However, he said, the absence of life on Enceladus would still be a significant discovery, as it would raise “serious questions about why life is absent from such an environment, given the right conditions.”
The European Space Agency (ESA) is planning a future mission to land a spacecraft on Enceladus's south pole to collect additional samples. The agency is targeting the early 2040s as the earliest possible launch date.
TOPICS Solar System
Sophie Berdugo, Social Link Navigator, Live Science Contributor
Sophie is a UK-based staff writer for Live Science. She covers a wide range of topics, having previously covered research ranging from bonobo communication to the first water in the universe. Her work has also appeared in publications such as New Scientist, The Observer, and BBC Wildlife, and her freelance work for New Scientist was shortlisted for the 2025 Association of British Science Journalists' Newcomer of the Year Award. Before becoming a science journalist, she earned a PhD in evolutionary anthropology from Oxford University, where she spent four years studying why some chimpanzees are better tool users than others.
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