A key chemical building block of life has been found on Saturn’s moon Enceladus
. Phosphorus was detected in salty ice grains that were released into space by plumes that erupt between the cracks of the moon’s ice shell. An ocean exists beneath the thick, icy surface of Enceladus, and plumes of material regularly release from geysers at the moon’s south pole. That material becomes incorporated into Saturn’s outermost E ring. Scientists used data from NASA’s Cassini mission, which studied Saturn and its moons between 2004 and 2017.
That’s because “soda oceans,” or those rich in carbonates and carbon dioxide like the one on Enceladus, can dissolve large amounts of phosphates that are otherwise locked inside rocky minerals, Postberg said.
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