Image copyright NASA

Scientists have found complex carbon-based molecules in the waters of Saturn's moon Enceladus.

Compounds like this have only previously been found on Earth, and in some meteorites.

They are thought to have formed in reactions between water and warm rock at the base of the moon's subsurface ocean.

Though not a sign of life, their presence suggests Enceladus could play host to living organisms.

The discovery came from data gathered by the Cassini spacecraft.

Image copyright Press Association Image caption Small neighbourhood: Enceladus is just 500km wide

A new pale blue dot?

"These huge molecules contain a complex network often built from hundreds of atoms," explains study author Dr Frank Postberg.

"This is the first ever detection of such complex organics coming from an extraterrestrial water-world."

On Earth, these molecules are usually biologically created, but this does not have to be the case.

"They are a necessary precursor to life," says Dr Postberg, "[but] we currently cannot tell if these organics are biologically irrelevant or signs of prebiotic chemistry or even life."

What does life need?

Liquid water

Energy

Organics (compounds containing carbon)

A group of particular elements (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulphur)

Phosphorus and sulphur have not yet been measured on the moon, but it has all of the other ingredients.

What next?

The Cassini mission, which ended by plunging into Saturn's cloud-tops last September, was never designed to detect life.

In fact, it was dispatched before scientists even knew about the peculiar jets of water emerging from the south pole of Enceladus.

Cassini first observed them in 2005, after its arrival in the Saturn system.

The technology to distinguish whether molecules like those detected are biological in origin already exists on Earth.

"The next logical step," says Dr Postberg, "is to go back to Enceladus soon with a dedicated payload and see if there is extraterrestrial life."

Learn more...</s>Last year, astronomers announced that ocean worlds like Europa and Enceladus may be the best chance for finding life outside of Earth in our solar system. Now, the discovery of complex organic molecules in plumes that rise from Enceladus’ subsurface ocean further suggests that the moon could support life as we know it.

Before NASA’s Cassini mission studied Saturn and its moons for 13 years, beginning in 2004, Enceladus held many secrets. Cassini revealed that there was a global ocean between the moon’s icy crust and its rocky core.

Although the Cassini mission ended in a blaze of glory in September when it disintegrated in Saturn’s atmosphere, surprises from the data it collected will be released for years to come. A study detailing the latest discovery from Cassini data was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

“We are, yet again, blown away by Enceladus,” study co-author Christopher Glein, a Southwest Research Institute space scientist specializing in extraterrestrial chemical oceanography, said in a statement. “Previously we’d only identified the simplest organic molecules containing a few carbon atoms, but even that was very intriguing. Now we’ve found organic molecules with masses above 200 atomic mass units. That’s over ten times heavier than methane. With complex organic molecules emanating from its liquid water ocean, this moon is the only body besides Earth known to simultaneously satisfy all of the basic requirements for life as we know it.”

Cassini’s Cosmic Dust Analyzer and the Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer sampled and measured the ice grains and vapor being ejected by cryo-volcanic plumes from warm cracks in the ice crust. They also sampled Saturn’s E ring, which was formed by ice grains that escaped Enceladus’ gravity.

In 2015, when Cassini flew the closest it ever came to Enceladus, molecular hydrogen was detected in the plume. Scientists believe the molecular hydrogen forms as a result of the interaction between water and rocks when it’s in a hydrothermal environment.

“Hydrogen provides a source of chemical energy supporting microbes that live in the Earth’s oceans near hydrothermal vents,” study coauthor Hunter Waite, program director at the Southwest Research Institute and the Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer principal investigator, said in a statement. “Once you have identified a potential food source for microbes, the next question to ask is ‘what is the nature of the complex organics in the ocean?’ This paper represents the first step in that understanding — complexity in the organic chemistry beyond our expectations!”

When looking at the potential habitability of an environment, NASA’s checklist includes water, organics and a food or energy source toward the top, Waite said in an email.

Measurements of methane, molecular hydrogen and carbon dioxide in the global ocean show that the ocean has the chemical energy necessary for microbes to produce methane — if there are microbes, Waite said. Recent studies show that there are microbes like this in our own ocean.

The new study adds the detection of large, carbon-rich organic molecules to the previous findings, surprising the researchers. They believe that the molecules are caused by chemical reactions between Enceladus’ rocky core and the ocean’s warm water. Based on their data, these molecules could be sitting in a thin film on top of the ocean, where bubbles can rise and burst.

“They may represent life’s chemical building blocks or even the remains of past microbial populations or there may be simple abiotic ways to explain the origin of the materials,” Waite said. “In any event, specific identification of these organic compounds is the next step in our search for life in Enceladus’ ocean. The complexity of the organic compounds identified was beyond our wildest expectations — non-soluble complex organics floating as a film on an alien ocean. Wrap your head around that.”

Proposals for missions to further study Enceladus were submitted to NASA last year, and they’re being evaluated. Waite suggests that the next step would be a new mission to fly through the E ring and the plumes of Enceladus to provide data.

“A future spacecraft could fly through the plume of Enceladus, and analyze those complex organic molecules using a high-resolution mass spectrometer to help us determine how they were made,” Glein said. “We must be cautious, but it is exciting to ponder that this finding indicates that the biological synthesis of organic molecules on Enceladus is possible.”

Meanwhile, NASA plans to further explore ocean worlds in our solar system through the Europa Clipper mission, the first to explore an alien ocean. The Europa Clipper, named for the innovative streamlined ships of the 1800s, will launch in the 2020s and arrive at Jupiter’s moon Europa after a few years. Europa is also an ice-covered moon with a subsurface salty liquid ocean that shoots plumes above the surface.

Europa Clipper will be able to gather material from plumes if it can fly through them. This would allow scientists a first look at the material inside Europa’s ocean that’s spewing through the icy crust to determine whether it’s habitable and supports life.

Europa Clipper’s instruments will be capable of “sniffing” the atmosphere of Europa, with more than 40 planned flybys. The flybys will be less than 228 miles above the surface, in the observed range of the plumes, which can reach 124 to 228 miles above the surface.

So which is the best candidate for supporting life: Europa or Enceladus?

“Verification of plumes on Europa suggest that with Europa Clipper’s improved instrumentation, Europa could leap frog Enceladus in the search for alien life,” Waite said. “The Clipper is tuned to look for signs of life in Europa’s plume, something we never expected with Cassini.”</s>Complex organic molecules have been discovered originating from one of Saturn‘s moons, Enceladus, adding to its potential to support life, researchers said on Wednesday.

The Cassini spacecraft first flew close to the ice-covered moon in 2005 as part of a mission to gather data on Saturn that will be analysed for years to come.

READ MORE: NASA’s Cassini ends mission by crashing into Saturn. Here’s what the spacecraft taught us

A team led by Frank Postberg and Nozair Khawaja of the University of Heidelberg in Germany said they had identified fragments of large organic molecules in ice grains that were ejected from geysers through cracks in the moon’s icy exterior.

Their findings were published in the Nature journal.

“It is the first ever detection of complex organics coming from an extraterrestrial waterworld,” Postberg was quoted as saying in a statement on the European Space Agency’s website.

The Enceladus findings come after data earlier this month showed organic compounds on the surface of Mars and seasonal fluctuations of atmospheric methane, marking some of the strongest evidence ever that Earth’s neighbour may have harboured life.

Cassini has previously detected lightweight organic molecules at Enceladus but the newly found fragments are much larger. Such large molecules can only be created by complex chemical processes including those related to life, ESA said.

However, while this indicates that Enceladus may have conditions that could allow for life, organic compounds can also arise from other sources, such as from meteorites.

WATCH: NASA’s rover finds more evidence that life on Mars may be possible

Postberg said the fragments could come from hydrothermal activity deep within the moon.

“In my opinion the fragments we found are of hydrothermal origin, having been processed inside the hydrothermally active core of Enceladus: in the high pressures and warm temperatures we expect there, it is possible that complex organic molecules can arise,” he said.

The Cassini joint mission between NASA, ESA and the Italian space agency came to an end in 2017.</s>Scientists continue to peer deeper into the galaxy in the search for exoplanets that may host alien life, but our best chance of finding extraterrestrial life might actually be right here in our own Solar System. A new study based on data collected by NASA’s Cassini orbiter is providing some tantalizing clues as to what is hiding beneath the thick ice sheets on Saturn’s moon Enceladus, and it’s incredibly exciting.

The study, which was published in Nature, reveals the presence of complex organic compounds within the planet’s vast ocean, and while it’s not definitive proof that life exists deep within the moon, it’s a massive step towards that potential discovery.

Enceladus is incredibly special. It’s tiny orb, much smaller than the Earth, but it’s covered in a thick sheet of ice that encases a massive ocean of liquid water. We know this because of the large fissures that exist near its poles, particularly near the moon’s southern end, where water sprays out into space from between the cracks. Deep within the planet, the water is warm, and that’s a pretty big deal when it comes to searching for life.

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft snatched a sample of those particles during its mission, and this new research is based upon the data that it sent back. Scientists now say that the water contained carbon-rich material, suggesting some pretty complex organic processes happening near the center of the moon. This makes Enceladus the only other body in the known universe with all the prerequisites for life, as far as we understand it.

Researchers have long hypothesized that superheated hydrothermal vents exist near a rocky core at the center of Enceladus, creating the pressure that ultimate creates the massive plumes of water that spew out into space. These new findings support that theory, and since we already know that organisms can survive off of the energy of such vents in Earth’s oceans, in the absence of sunlight, it’s entirely possible that the same may be happening inside of Saturn’s icy moon.

In order to actually detect the presence of life deep within the moon, we’re going to need to make a trip to Enceladus. At the moment, no missions have been greenlit, but several scientific bodies are working towards that goal. Late last year, a Russian billionaire decided he wanted to fund a trip to Saturn’s moon in order to take additional samples of the water being shot out into space, but confirming the presence of life — and explaining what it looks like and how it functions — is going to require a more sophisticated approach that, for the moment, is still just a dream.</s>
• Enceladus is a small moon of Saturn with an ocean under its surface and jets that blast water and ice out into space.
• Scientists just looked at data from a spacecraft that flew through the plume of water last year and found traces of complex organic molecules.
• The finding isn't proof of life elsewhere in the solar system, but it's a good sign that makes Enceladus even more intriguing for future missions to search for alien life.

"How cooperative Enceladus is," Nozair Khawaja says. The small moon of Saturn, already one of the prime places to look for life elsewhere in the solar system, just got a little bit more enticing. 



Khawaja, a planetary scientist with the Institut für Geowissenschaften (Institute for Earth Science) at Heidelberg University in Germany, co-authored a new study in Nature that reveals complex organic molecules are present in the plumes of water erupting from Enceladus out into space. In other words, all the components in the recipe for life as we know it are present on the small, watery moon—although whether life has taken root is still unknown.



The new research led by Khawaja and colleague Frank Postberg analyzes data from two instruments on the now-defunct Cassini spacecraft that crashed into Saturn last year. Before its fiery end, however, the spacecraft flew through the plumes of Enceladus to collect material ejected from the ocean of water beneath the moon's icy surface.

"The moon freely delivers its organic inventory to the spacecraft in high concentrations," Khawaja says. "You don’t need to drill, not even to land for that. It’s just amazing."



When NASA's Cassini spacecraft arrived at Saturn in 2004, scientists thought Enceladus was nothing more than a frozen ice ball. A year later, when the team realized that the moon was in fact spewing water from a subsurface ocean out into space, the discovery was "jaw-dropping," Cassini project scientist Linda Spilker told Popular Mechanics last year.

NASA adjusted its mission to fly Cassini through the plumes of Enceladus to learn about the composition of the water. Because the spacecraft wasn't built for this purpose, however, it was not carrying instruments built for the task. Instead, it had to rely on the Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) and the Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS), tools designed to study much smaller molecules. Even so, the shadows of larger organic compounds have been spotted.

Because Cassini's readings are at a much lower resolution than you'd ideally want to spot larger molecules, the researchers struggled to pin down exactly what they are looking at. Nevertheless, they can say with confidence that there are large carbon-based molecules in the watery material of Enceladus' plumes.



Hunter Waite, the principal investigator for the INMS instrument at the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) and a contributing author of the new study, says that the Cassini data points to "complex organic compounds that contain benzene moieties, possibly linked by polymeric chains with evidence for hydroxyl, ethoxy, and/or carbonyl functional groups as well as nitrogen bearing functional groups."



"The new organics can be either building blocks (things the microbes consume) or biological remains of membranes (things the microbes produce)," Waite tells Popular Mechanics.

That said, the presence of complex organic molecules is not a smoking gun for alien life on Enceladus. These compounds could have been produced by other natural processes, such as heat and pressure from hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, created by the churning of Enceladus' porous rocky core, or even brought to Enceladus by comets.

Contributing author Christopher Glein, a research scientist with SwRI who specializes in extraterrestrial oceanography, says via email:



"Because organic molecules are fundamental to the nature of life as we know it, this finding makes Enceladus an even more attractive astrobiological destination in the solar system. ... However, we know from studying meteorites, comets, and Titan’s atmosphere that organic compounds do not equal life. Cautious optimism is in order."



Life Bubbling Up from Below?

While we cannot say with any certainty where this stuff is coming from, a discovery last year from the Cassini team helps fill in a few pieces to the puzzle.

Before scientists were able to work out the complex organics in the plumes of Enceladus, NASA managed to determine that a smaller substance is abundant in the moon's waters: molecular hydrogen. This finding suggests that hydrothermal vents, driven by the gravitational tug of Saturn, are currently on the ocean floor of Enceladus, pumping heat and nutrients into the water.

Whether or not this is a good sign for life is an open question. On the one hand, hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor of Earth can support thriving communities of living organisms, from microbes to tube worms and even crabs. However, the heat and pressure of these ecosystems can also produce complex organic compounds chemically, without any help from life.

"We proposed that the most plausible origin of these complex organic molecules are hydrothermal vents inside the highly porous rocky core of Enceladus," Khawaja says. 



Glein adds: "We can get some guidance from analogous processes on Earth. On our planet, [hydrogen]-rich conditions in some hydrothermal systems create a strong drive to produce organic molecules, either abiotically [without life] via mineral-catalyzed reactions, or by biosynthesis where vent fluids mix with seawater."

So we have two different pictures of what could be happening on Enceladus. In one case, material on the ocean floor is churning and reacting to generate complex organic materials chemically. In the other case, dead alien microbes are decomposing and their leftover organic material is floating to the surface. From there, the organics are ejected into space in icy plumes that reach more than 10,000 above the ground, where our spacecraft can snatch them out of the void.

But to answer definitively one of the oldest questions in science—whether life exists someplace else—we need to send more spacecraft to the outer solar system to continue the search.

"We need to mount a serious campaign to methodically address the life question," Glein says. "A first step would be to fly much more capable mass spectrometers through the plume. This could provide the first hints of life, called biosignatures, such as a strange distribution of organic molecules or isotope ratios that are unlikely to be produced by geochemical processes." If the results from these scouting missions were promising, then additional missions could be launched to look for life directly with "landers, plume sample return, and submarines."

This process has already begun for another tantalizing watery world in the solar system: Europa, the fourth-largest moon of Jupiter. Like Enceladus, Europa is thought to have hydrothermal activity on the ocean floor and plumes erupting into space, so this moon is the target of NASA's next flagship mission to the outer solar system. Europa Clipper is slated to launch in the early 2020s carrying more advanced instruments to look for complex organic molecules and determine their origin.

"We don’t know that Europa has such organic compounds, and we have to wait until we go there," Khawaja says. "There is a need to go back to Enceladus."</s>Using data collected by NASA’s late-great Cassini space probe, scientists have detected traces of complex organic molecules seeping out from Enceladus’ ice-covered ocean. It’s yet another sign that this intriguing Saturnian moon has what it takes to sustain life.



If life exists elsewhere in our Solar System, chances are it’s on Enceladus. The moon features a vast, warm subterranean ocean, one sandwiched between an icy crust and a rocky core. Previous research shows this ocean contains simple organic molecules, minerals, and molecular hydrogen—an important source of chemical energy. On Earth, hydrothermal processes near volcanic vents are known to sustain complex ecosystems, raising hopes that something similar is happening on Enceladus.

New research published today in Nature suggests Enceladus’ ocean also contains complex organic molecules—yet another sign that this moon contains the basic conditions and chemical ingredients to support life. Now, this isn’t proof that life exists on this icy moon, but it does show that Enceladus’ warm, soupy ocean is capable of producing complex and dynamic molecules, and the kinds of chemical reactions required to produce and sustain microbial life.

This discovery was made possible thanks to a neat geophysical quirk that happens on Enceladus. Every once in a while, surface cracks appear, shooting plumes of vapor and ice grains into space. On October 28, 2015, the Cassini probe flew through these plumes, collecting samples. The probe’s Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) and Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) made measurements, both within the plume and inside Saturn’s E-ring, which is formed by plume ice grains escaping from the moon.

Researchers from the Southwest Research Institute, the University of Heidelberg, and other institutions, took a look at this data with a mass spectrometer. The scientists detected signatures consistent with large, complex, carbon-rich organic molecules. These findings were verified by comparing the spectral lines to an analogous experiment conducted on Earth. The researchers theorize that chemical reactions created by warm water rubbing along the rocky core are producing the compounds.

“Previously, Cassini had already found lightweight organic molecules emerging from Enceladus both in gas phase and ice grains, but those organic molecules were much smaller than the complex organic material we found,” Nozair Khawaja, a researcher at the University of Heidelberg’s Institute of Geosciences and a co-author of the new study, told Gizmodo. “This is the first-ever detection of such a large and complex organic molecules on an extraterrestrial water world.”

The newly confirmed organic molecules feature masses above 200 atomic units, which is more than 10 times heavier than methane. These molecules contain aromatic structures (ring-shaped, flat molecules) with possible cross chains of hydrocarbons. The source of these complex organics could be of a non-biological or biological nature, but the exact origin has not been determined. Khawaja says this complex organic material is originating within the subsurface ocean and that it’s floating as a thin layer atop the surface of the ocean. It also appears to be highly hydrophobic, meaning it’s repelled by water.

“The simplest scenario is that this complex organic material formed inside the hot and hydrothermal active rocky core and transported upward to the ocean surface,” said Khawaja. “We cannot decide whether the origin of this complex material is biotic or not, but there is astrobiological potential. Similar hydrothermal vents exist on Earth and known to host some life forms.”

Enceladus, this study shows, exhibits critical requirements for life, a finding affirmed by previous studies, and it’s now the only object besides Earth known to harbor these conditions.

Jonathan I. Lunine, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist from Cornell University who wasn’t involved with the new study (though he was a referee during the journal’s peer review process for the paper), said the authors “made a compelling case” and “there is very little doubt” that the signatures analyzed by the researchers were produced by organic molecules. Lunine says it’s an important discovery because it’s the first detection of carbon-and hydrogen-bearing molecules in the ice grains coming from Enceladus, as opposed to just the vapor.

“Being in the ice grains, which are salty, puts the origin of the organic molecules in the subsurface ocean itself—they are coming from the ocean, not from the crust, which is always a possibility with the gas phase,” Lunine told Gizmodo. “These are organic rich grains—richer than might be expected from the bulk ocean. As the researchers suggest, perhaps there is a layer of concentrated organics where the ocean meets the ice, or some mechanism having to do with bubble formation and bursting.”

Christopher P. McKay, a planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, also not involved with the study, said the discovery is interesting, but he says meteors or comets may have delivered the organic compounds detected in the plume.

“Very ‘complex’ organics are found in meteorites,” McKay told Gizmodo. “But they have nothing to do with biology. Only the presence of specific complex organics, and with a specific distribution, can be an indicator of biology.”

McKay says the new research suggests Enceladus’ ocean “is an organic-rich soup and clearly is habitable for life,” while cautioning that we still don’t know if life exists on Enceladus. “The presence of these organics directly do not make the case,” he said.

The next step is to go back to Enceladus and conduct more research. The good news is that NASA and ESA have space missions, the Europa Clipper and JUICE, which are scheduled to launch in 2022 to visit Europa and Ganymede, two icy moons around Jupiter. But given what we know about Enceladus, we should probably head back there as well.</s>Scientists have discovered complex organic molecules erupting from one of Saturn's moons into space, boosting the idea that this ocean-world hosts conditions suitable for life.

The findings, made by analyzing data from the Cassini spacecraft, were published in a study Wednesday. The moon, Enceladus, is one of several dozen moons that orbit Saturn.

"With complex organic molecules emanating from its liquid water ocean, this moon is the only body besides Earth known to simultaneously satisfy all of the basic requirements for life as we know it," said study co-author Christopher Glein, a space scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio.

Enceladus is considered one of our solar system's most promising candidates in the search for extraterrestrial life. Huge icy jets several hundreds of miles high erupt from the moon and are likely associated with hydrothermal vents in the moon's core.

Another co-author, Frank Postberg of the University of Heidelburg, said "it is the first-ever detection of complex organics coming from an extraterrestrial water-world."

The organic molecules were discovered in ice grains ejected from geysers through cracks in Enceladus's icy surface.

More: James Webb Space Telescope launch delayed until 2021, cost balloons to nearly $10 billion

While this isn't concrete proof of life on Enceladus, the discovery of complex molecules, combined with liquid water and hydrothermal activity, means it is possible.

Launched from Earth in 1997, Cassini spent a remarkable 13 years circling and studying Saturn and its moons. Although the spacecraft crashed into Saturn last year as its mission ended, scientists are still analyzing data it sent back.

“Even after its end, the Cassini spacecraft continues to teach us about the potential of Enceladus to advance the field of astrobiology in an ocean world,” Glein said.

This is the most recent in a long series of discoveries made by Cassini that have been painting Enceladus as a potentially habitable water-world, the European Space Agency said.

The study was published in Nature, a peer-reviwed British journal.</s>Scientists trawling through data from the dead Cassini spacecraft have discovered that icy jets on Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, contains all the basic ingredients required to support life.

The alien seawater which shoots from the moon’s geysers was known to contain a range of interesting ingredients including salt, silica and simple carbon compounds. However, the latest research has revealed that large, carbon-rich molecules are also blasted out from cracks in the moon’s icy surface, indicating that all the ingredients needed for life are present.

READ MORE: ‘Looking for a smoking gun’: Russian billionaire to fund alien-hunting mission to Saturn moon

The researchers released a statement saying they are “blown away” by the findings. “With complex organic molecules emanating from its liquid water ocean, this moon is the only body besides Earth known to simultaneously satisfy all of the basic requirements for life as we know it,” the paper’s co-author Dr Christopher Glein said.

The discovery is the result of years of investigating data gathered by NASA's Cassini spacecraft as it flew close by Saturn’s moons. After a mission lasting nearly 20 years, Cassini retired last year when NASA operators deliberately plunged it into Saturn.

Enceladus, which was discovered in 1789, is located 1.27 billion miles away from Earth. The moon is about 500km (310 miles) in diameter and it has a surface temperature below -200 Celsius. Much of the knowledge about the moon has been gleaned from the highly-detailed photographs snapped by Cassini during its fly-bys.

During a close flyby in October 2015 one of Cassini’s instruments detected molecular hydrogen as the spacecraft flew through the moon’s plume. The hydrogen is believed to be the result of a geochemical interaction between water and rocks in the cracks on the surface.

“Even after its end, the Cassini spacecraft continues to teach us about the potential of Enceladus to advance the field of astrobiology in an ocean world,” Glein said.

The paper’s findings also have a huge influence on the next generation of space exploration. “A future spacecraft could fly through the plume of Enceladus, and analyze those complex organic molecules using a high-resolution mass spectrometer to help us determine how they were made,” Glein explained.

“We must be cautious, but it is exciting to ponder that this finding indicates that the biological synthesis of organic molecules on Enceladus is possible.”

The paper was published in the latest issue of Nature.

Like this story? Share it with a friend!</s>Gizmodo The Discovery of Complex Organic Molecules on Saturn’s Moon Enceladus Is a Huge Deal | Offsp</s>NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has detected complex organic much larger and heavier molecules originating from Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus, strengthening the idea that this ocean world hosts conditions suitable for life, says a study. The sixth largest of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus is only about 314 miles (505 km) in diameter. Previously, Cassini had detected small, relatively common organic molecules at Enceladus that were much smaller.

Now, it has showed powerful hydrothermal vents mix up material from the moon’s water-filled, porous core with water from the moon’s massive subsurface ocean and it is released into space, in the form of water vapour and ice grains, said researchers led by Frank Postberg from the University of Heidelberg in Germany. The large molecules come from hydrothermal activity driving complex chemistry in the core of the moon.

“In my opinion, the fragments we found are of hydrothermal origin; in the high pressures and warm temperatures we expect there, it is possible that complex organic molecules can arise,” Postberg noted, in a paper published in the journal Nature.

Also Read: Space tourists may not be prepared for trip beyond Earth: NASA astronaut

Moreover, the bubbles of gas on Enceladus, rising through miles of ocean, could bring up organic material from depths, where they could form a thin film floating on the ocean surface and in cracks of vents, in the interior of the moon, beneath its icy shell. After rising near the top of the ocean, the bubbles may burst or otherwise disperse the organics, Cassini data showed.

Complex molecules comprising hundreds of atoms are rare beyond Earth. The presence of the large complex molecules, along with liquid water and hydrothermal activity, bolsters the hypothesis that the ocean of Enceladus may be a habitable environment for life, Postberg said.

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Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, is reported to host complex carbon-based molecules. Considered a precursor to life, the compounds were only previously known to exist on Earth and some meteorites.