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Hydrogen on Enceladus

15 April 2017
Biology

The BBC was highly excitable on Thursday evening – hours of debate on the prospect of life on Enceladus, a moon of the planet Saturn. The presenters had seemingly read little or anything about the subject prior to their auto cue reader being set in front of their noses, but hey, they were out to educate the public. Analysis of data from NASAs Cassini Mission spacecraft indicates hydrogen gas in the plume of material erupting from Enceladus. Hydrogen, it says, is best explained by chemical reactions between the moon's rocky core and warm water from its sub-surface ocean. In other words, the ocean floor on Enceladus 'could' include features similar to hydro-thermal vents on Earth (places where outgassing occurs) and such vents do support microbial life forms. These are also thought to the soup of life. We have a theory. However, little attention was paid to the plume itself – how was it generated (and so forth).

See https://phys.org/print411316363.html or watch the video from NASA at www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2017/04/nasa-documentary-oceans-worlds-of-…

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