SCIENCE

NASA: Ocean world near Saturn candidate for potential life

ByMARCIA DUNN AP logo

Thursday, April 13, 2017

This Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2015 image provided by NASA shows Saturn's moon Enceladus, center, as the Cassini spacecraft prepared to make a close flyby of the icy moon.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute via AP-AP

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- A tiny, ice-encrusted ocean world orbiting Saturn is now a hotter-than-ever candidate for potential life.

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has detected hydrogen molecules in the geysers shooting off the moon Enceladus, possibly the result of deep-sea chemical reactions between water and rock that could spark microbial life.

The findings were announced Thursday in the journal Science.

NASA and others are quick to point out this latest discovery does not mean there's life on Enceladus, but that there may be conditions favorable for life.

A liquid ocean exists beneath the icy surface of Enceladus, which is barely 300 miles (500 kilometers) across. Plumes of water vapor spew from cracks at the moon's south pole.

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