Submitted By Uversa: Scientists have found evidence that cold, Yellowstone-like geysers of water are issuing from a moon of Saturn called Enceladus, apparently fueled by liquid reservoirs that may lie just tens of yards beneath the moon's icy surface. The surprising discovery, detailed in Friday's issue of the journal Science, could shoot Enceladus to the top of the list in the search for life elsewhere in our solar system. Scientists described it as the most important discovery in planetary science in a quarter-century. "I think this is important enough that we will see a redirection in the planetary exploration program," Carolyn Porco, head of the imaging team for the Cassini mission to Saturn, told MSNBC.com. "We've just brought Enceladus up to the forefront as a major target of astrobiological interest."The readings from Enceladus' geyser plumes indicate that all the prerequisites for life as we know it could exist beneath Enceladus' surface, Porco said."Living organisms require liquid water and organic materials, and we know we have both on Enceladus now," she said. "The plumes through which Cassini flew last July contain methane, contain CO2, propane — they contain several organic materials."The third necessary ingredient — energy for fueling life's processes — could exist around hydrothermal vents around the bottom of Enceladus' water reservoirs, just as it does around Earth's deep-ocean hydrothermal vents.The results impressed University of Colorado planetary scientist Robert Pappalardo, who has studied Enceladus and other icy moons but was not involved in the newly published research.

"I think the discovery of activity on Enceladus is about the most exciting discovery in planetary science since the volcanoes of Io," he said, referring to the detection of volcanic activity on Jupiter's moon by the Voyager probe in 1979.The findings unveiled Thursday are based on imagery as well as temperature readings from Cassini, a U.S-European spacecraft that has been studying the ringed planet and its moons since 2004.The precise sources of the geysers could not be spotted directly, because Cassini's camera isn't quite good enough to spot the bright spray of water and ice crystals against the bright ice on Enceladus' surface, said imaging team member Andrew Ingersoll, an atmospheric scientist at the California Institute of Technology.

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This is tremendously exciting. It's too bad that NASA is now cutting 50% of it's astobiology budget, which will, in effect, almost kill NASA's astrobiology division.

Let's stop blowing billions on stupid wars in the Mideast, put half the money we now spend on elective wars into space exploration, and really move forward into a bright new future.

Here's a thought. It is believed that Enceladus's ice jets are what keep Saturn's "E" ring going. Now, imagine that microbial life did arise on Enceladus. That life would also be ejected by the geysers and distributed into the "E" ring, eventually raining down on Saturn. Now if one believes that microbes (in spore form) can withstand the open environment of space... Didn't we find spores that survived on parts of satellites launched from Earth?

Excellent notion, Rykster. The upper atmospheres of Saturn could already be capable of supporting life -- perhaps balloon-like creatures who look like giant jellyfish, who subsist on organics that are believed plentiful in Saturn's atmosphere.

The SF writer Ben Bova, in his book "Saturn" also posulates life in the rings, very similar to what Rykter suggests.

I haven't read Bova's Saturn. What does he suggest for nutrients for the organisms in Saturn's rings?

Image left: Saturn's moon Enceladus is only 505 kilometers (314 miles) across, small enough to fit within the length of the United Kingdom, as illustrated here.
Image credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

http://www.solarviews.com/eng/enceladu.htm

Despite its age the moon is very small and that it is so distant from the sun, that there is life in any form is fascinating. I would say that in planning our next mission to Saturn mankind should consider the possibility of including a Lander, given its distance from
Saturn it’s possible that microbial life is not all we will find beneath the surface

It is also very plausible that Enceladus will be a good prep for Europa.

Any thoughts?

I'm hoping fishies!

In 50 years, the eggs of the Enceladus' sturgeon will be worth their weight in gold.

The biggest problem with any lander in a possible life-sustaining world is contamination. Either a lander will seed a potential world with earth bacterias (thus seeding it with life that never existed there, and causing any detection of life form in that world to be suspected as originating in earth), or will kill off any alien life form which exist there.

The only possible solution is that the lander will contain some sort of anti-organic material, and will periodically spray itself with it (in case straying organic molecules wouldn't stick on it during the trip) till it'll arrive to Enceladus.

Overall though I agree it will be a preparation to a possible lander on Europa, both because it's much smaller, and the ice cover is also probably much thinner. Plus, being that Enceladus is much further away than Europa, if we'll manage to pull this off we could be pretty much assured we'll be able to pull a Europa mission .

I seriously hope all the big space agencies are working towards a mission to this moon since the NASA declaration.
I would love to see a lander there in 15 years.

We are unlikely to see a lander on Enceladus for a while. The major space agencies will be concentrating on manned missions to the moon and Mars for the next few decades.

Also it is far more likely that a probe will be sent to Europa first. The very fact that Europa is so much closer means that it will be easier to go their than to Enceladus.

Let's not count our chickens first, there may not be oceans on Enceladus. NASA has said that there is possibly liquid water there. Enceladus has hot spots, the liquid water maybe locallised not a global ocean as is likely on Europa.

I doubt that there will be any Enceladus' sturgeon, the kind of life we are talking about here is microbal and don't forget that there a vast difference between having all the ingredients for life and life actually occuring. I have a cupboard full of ingredients, sadly I don't have any cake

Ah, but you are forgeting something. The ingredients need the addition of energy, (yours), a heat source and they need to be mixed together in order to become a cake!
The ingredients for life abound in the universe. It is where they are in an environment of liquid water and an energy source exists that life arises.

Yes, while farther away, it would not be as difficult to drill down to the warm spots. But, being geologically active, especially in the regions where we would likely want to look, it would be very hazardous. After all, a lander would have a hard time jumping out of the way of a sudden geyser. While the density of the geyser would likely be quite low, the miniscule gravity of Enceladus would make it easy to tip over a lander.

"Saturn's atmosphere is mostly made of the simple molecules hydrogen and helium. There is a large amount of sulfur, which combines with some of the hydrogen to form hydrogen sulfide<---chemosynthesis as an alternative to photosynthesis when light is not available. There is also a large amount of nitrogen, which combines with the hydrogen to form ammonia. Oxygen is also present, which combines with the hydrogen to form water. "Source

Interesting that we have to consider that even a terrestrial organism could survive such a deep space journey to the Saturnian system. It says a lot for the tenacity of life.

Space sushi!
Doubtful, but look at all the things that we have found useful in terrestrial microbes, such as their ability to produce insulin and other such medical uses. Of course there is a down side to ET microbes as well, but we could surely learn so much more about the processes of life from having a wider pool to study from.

well water meanes plants! its not aliens but its a start!

alien

^^^
No, water does not mean plants, esp where there is so little light for photosynthesis. See my like to chemosynthesis above.

The day we find life on another planet is the day I'll believe we're not alone. Untill then, blah with it all.

Well, consider this. If the big worry is introducing earth microbes to other planets, what's going on on Mars? Or even the moon, for that matter? There's a possibility that earth bacteria are spreading all over the place. From whatever residue that was left on our equipment there.

It's a thought, anyway.

Doesn't space programs like NASA do an insane cleaning of the machine before launched though to prevent that?

I do believe they do. But there's always the possibility.

Not neccesarily true. Where these ingrediants and energy occur together life CAN arise. We only know of one world where this has happened Earth, that is because this is the only world we know in enough detail. Life may be common, it may on the other hand be extremely rare, it is possible that it is unique to this planet (although I deeply doubt that). It is impossible to extrapolate one result and say it is true for all worlds.

I have never stated that life does exist elsewhere. I merely explore the potential places it may be.

It's not the same, because both Mars and especially the moon do not have similar conditions that would enable earth-like life forms to survive. The problem with Enceladus and Europa is that they both have liquid water, and this temps above 0c, which is an envirement that can sustain earthly life.
Mars and the moon don't have such envirement anywhere on them (that we are aware), and thus no life form coming from earth could actually evolve there, even if it did arrive with our landers.