Tag Archives: Saturns

The rules of chemistry on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, may have to be rewritten thanks to a new discovery that shows how frozen crystals of hydrogen cyanide can mix with liquid hydrocarbons, in a combination that had not been thought possible until now. Experiments at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, coupled with computer simulations performed by researchers …

Fresh Ice From Saturn’s Moon Enceladus Reveals Stunning New Clues to Life  SciTechDaily Scientists use Cassini data to discover new molecules in Enceladus water jets  NASASpaceFlight.com – More Evidence Emerges That One of Saturn’s Moons Could Harbor Life  WIRED Space Radiation Can Produce Some Organic Molecules Detected on Icy Moons  eos.org Opinion – The US can jumpstart the search for life on this moon …

A recent study of Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, has detected several organic compounds that had never been recorded there before. The findings, published this month in Nature Astronomy, provide new clues about the interior chemical composition of this icy world, as well as new hope that it could harbor life. The researchers analyzed data from the Cassini probe, which …

The case for a newborn ocean on Saturn’s moon Mimas continues to build. Research mapping the thickness of the world’s icy crust not only provides a window for how old an existing ocean might be but also probes where the crust might be at its thinnest — the perfect spot for future missions to detect the ocean. At the same …

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, which explored Saturn and its moons for more than a decade, has yielded a new discovery. A recent peer-reviewed study found complex organic fragments in fresh ice grains from Saturn’s moon Enceladus, renewing hope that this water world harbors life in its oceans. These grains were blasted from fractures near the south pole and struck the spacecraft …

Astronomers have found that Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, is spewing out copious amounts of complex organic molecules, suggesting it’s an even more promising place to look for extraterrestrial life than previously thought. As detailed in a new study published in the journal Nature Astronomy, researchers examined data collected by NASA and the European Space Agency’s Cassini spacecraft, which visited the tiny …

Complex organic molecules that form part of the chain of chemical reactions that can result in life’s building blocks have been found in the watery geysers of Enceladus, almost twenty years after the plumes were first sampled by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. Cassini‘s mission to the ringed planet Saturn ended in 2017, but scientists are still making findings buried deep in …

Purple haze around Titan – A false-color image of Titan captured in 2004 by the Cassini spacecraft. The purple haze shows the dense atmosphere enveloping the moon’s golden body. Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute Titan’s atmosphere tilts and shifts seasonally. The discovery shapes future exploration. Researchers at the University of Bristol have uncovered unusual behavior in Titan’s atmosphere for the first …

A fresh look at data collected by NASA’s Cassini probe nearly two decades ago has revealed new, complex organic molecules on Saturn‘s icy moon Enceladus – pointing to tantalizing chemistry taking place deep beneath its hidden ocean. In plumes of water ice spewing from cracks in Enceladus’s shell, a team led by astrobiologist Nozair Khawaja from the University of Stuttgart …

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Scientists have uncovered new types of organics in icy geysers spouting from Saturn’s moon Enceladus, bolstering the likelihood that the ocean world may harbor conditions suitable for life. Their findings, reported Wednesday, are based on observations made by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft in 2008 during a close and fast flyby of Enceladus. The small moon, one …