{"id":17286,"date":"2023-06-14T19:51:42","date_gmt":"2023-06-14T11:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/scientists-trace-phosphates-to-enceladus-boosting-outlook-for-life-on-saturns-moon\/"},"modified":"2023-06-14T19:51:42","modified_gmt":"2023-06-14T11:51:42","slug":"scientists-trace-phosphates-to-enceladus-boosting-outlook-for-life-on-saturns-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/scientists-trace-phosphates-to-enceladus-boosting-outlook-for-life-on-saturns-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists trace phosphates to Enceladus, boosting outlook for life on Saturn\u2019s moon"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full-width\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"394\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/230613-enceladus-630x394.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-777652\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/230613-enceladus-630x394.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/230613-enceladus.jpg 730w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" class=\"wp-element-caption\">A cutaway view shows water rising up from Enceladus\u2019 ice-covered ocean. (NASA \/ JPL-Caltech Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Phosphorus, an essential ingredient for life as we know it, has been detected for the first time in water samples that can be traced back to Enceladus, an ice-covered moon of Saturn.<\/p>\n<p>The discovery, reported today in the journal Nature, lends further support to suggestions that life could lurk within Enceladus\u2019 ice-covered oceans \u2014 and perhaps in similar environments elsewhere in the solar system.<\/p>\n<p>Phosphorus-containing compounds, known as phosphates, provide the molecular backbone for DNA and RNA molecules. Adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, serves as the source of energy for living cells. This research marks the first time that phosphates have been traced to an extraterrestrial ocean. The Nature paper suggests that phosphate levels in Enceladus\u2019 hidden seas could be hundreds or even thousands of times higher than what exists in Earth\u2019s oceans.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBy determining such high phosphate concentrations readily available in Enceladus\u2019 ocean, we have now satisfied what is generally considered one of the strictest requirements in establishing whether celestial bodies are habitable,\u201d study co-author&nbsp;Fabian Klenner, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington, said in a news release.<\/p>\n<p>The team behind the research was led by Frank Postberg, a planetary scientist at Freie Universit\u00e4t Berlin. Klenner participated in the project during his studies at the German university, and started working at UW in May.<\/p>\n<p>More than a decade ago, readings collected by NASA\u2019s Cassini mission confirmed that water is spraying out of crevices in Enceladus\u2019 surface \u2014 and that the grains of ice gravitate toward Saturn\u2019s faint E ring. Cassini\u2019s Cosmic Dust Analyzer sampled the spray coming from Enceladus, but didn\u2019t register the presence of phosphorus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPrevious geochemical models were divided on the question of whether Enceladus\u2019 ocean contains significant quantities of phosphates at all,\u201d Postberg said.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"What You Need to Know About Enceladus\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PQSagzssvUQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>To address the question in a new way, Postberg and his colleagues looked at a set of readings from the Cosmic Dust Analyzer that focused on the material in the E ring.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe E ring data that we looked at gives us better statistics, as compared to data from the few Enceladus flybys,\u201d Klenner explained in an email exchange. \u201cPhosphorus is hard to find because it\u2019s the least abundant of the bio-essential elements, which are carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Klenner set up an experiment that mimicked the data generated by grains of water ice hitting Cassini\u2019s detector. He tried different chemical compositions and concentrations, hoping to come up with readings that matched the chemical signatures recorded by Cassini.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI prepared different phosphate solutions, and did the measurements, and we hit the bull\u2019s-eye,\u201d Klenner said. \u201cThis was in perfect match with the data from space.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Klenner said the ice grains contain phosphates \u201cbecause of water-rock interactions on the moon\u2019s seafloor.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe show in the paper through geochemical experiments and modeling that high phosphate concentrations are an inevitable outcome from interactions of a carbonate-rich fluid that has an alkaline pH (= Enceladus ocean) with unaltered carbonaceous chondritic rock (= Enceladus rocky core),\u201d he said via email.<\/p>\n<p>Enceladus isn\u2019t the only icy world that\u2019s thought to harbor hidden seas. Scientists say that Europa, an ice-covered moon of Jupiter, appears to have an ocean that\u2019s up to 10 times deeper than Earth\u2019s. Other icy celestial bodies that may have subsurface seas include two other Jovian moons, Ganymede and Callisto; Titan, a smog-covered moon of Saturn; and the dwarf planets Ceres and Pluto.<\/p>\n<p>Robotic space missions could well provide more insights into the composition of extraterrestrial oceans, and the prospects for habitability. NASA\u2019s Europa Clipper and the European Space Agency\u2019s Juice mission will take a closer look at Jupiter\u2019s icy moons, while NASA\u2019s Dragonfly mission will explore Titan. <\/p>\n<p>Enceladus isn\u2019t yet on the list for a future robotic visit, but several mission concepts have been proposed \u2014 including Enceladus Orbilander, Moonraker and Breakthrough Enceladus.<\/p>\n<p>Postberg said the ultimate question about Enceladus still needs to be answered.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlthough we know now that Enceladus is a habitable place, we have no clue if it is actually inhabited,\u201d he told GeekWire in an email. \u201cWe need a new mission to find that out.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>In addition to Postberg and Klenner, the authors of the paper published by Nature, \u201cDetection of Phosphates Originating From Enceladus\u2019s Ocean,\u201d include Yasuhito Sekine, Christopher Glein, Zenghui Zou, Bernd Abel, Kento Furuya, Jon Hillier, Nozair Khawaja, Sascha Kempf, Lenz Noelle, Takuya Saito, Juergen Schmidt, Takazo Shibuya, Ralf Srama and Shuya Tan. The research was the subject of a presentation at the American Geophysical Union\u2019s meeting in Chicago last December. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A cutaway view shows water rising up from Enceladus\u2019 ice-covered ocean. (NASA \/ JPL-Caltech Illustration) Phosphorus, an essential ingredient for life as we know it, has been detected for the first time in water samples that can be traced back to Enceladus, an ice-covered moon of Saturn. The discovery, reported today in the journal Nature, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1874,2394,1559,4368],"class_list":["post-17286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-astrobiology","tag-cassini","tag-enceladus","tag-university-of-washington"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17286"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}