The new findings from Nasa’s Cassini spacecraft, which has been orbiting Saturn since 2002, indicate that ammonia, carbon dioxide, methane and organics were also found coming from the plumes, almost all the ingredients needed to support life on earth. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/Handout via REUTERS

Ice plumes shooting into space from Saturn’s ocean-bearing moon Enceladus contain hydrogen from hydrothermal vents, an environment that some scientists believe led to the rise of life on Earth, research published on Thursday showed. Scientists stressed that the discovery on a moon named Enceladus is not evidence that life has in fact developed on another world, but they have managed to establish the existence of the water, chemistry and energy sources that are necessary for it. In a separate study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, scientists using the Hubble Space Telescope again found what is likely a plume emitting from Europa, one of Jupiter's four largest moons, which also has an icy crust atop an ocean. A spacecraft under development called the Europa Clipper, to launch sometime in the 2020s, could shed more light on the matter.Voytek said her money is still on Europa for potential life, versus Enceladus, since Europa is much older and any potential life there has had more time to emerge.While questions remain, Thursday's news represents "an important advance in assessing the habitability of Enceladus," Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Jeffrey Seewald wrote in a companion article.
NASA announces Saturn's moon Enceladus has the conditions in its global subsurface ocean to support life.