INDONESIAN EYE, JAKARTAThe existence of aliens continues to be in the spotlight of researchers because until now there has been a lot of evidence regarding the signs of their life. The United States Aeronautics and Space Administration recently found signs of extraterrestrial life in the clump of Saturn’s moon, Enceladus.
According to a study published in Nature Astronomy, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft found large amounts of methane along with relatively high concentrations of dihydrogen and carbon dioxide molecules in Enceladus, which cannot be explained by known geochemical processes.
This led the researchers to suggest the existence of Earth-like microbes that ‘eat’ dihydrogen and produce methane.
Previous research has shown that Enceladus is capable of supporting life. Saturn’s moons have subsurface oceans that are covered by a layer of ice, which provides a warm climate for life to grow.
Not only that, the researchers have made comparisons between hydrothermal vents on Earth’s ocean floor and the Enceladus plume, where the moon’s ocean reacts with rock to provide a source of chemical energy.
The researchers used a mathematical model that combines geochemistry and microbial ecology to evaluate Cassini’s methane data.
“They concluded that the Cassini data are consistent either with microbial hydrothermal vent activity, or with processes that do not involve life forms but are different from those known to occur on Earth,” explains Régis Ferrière, a University of Arizona biologist and one of the study’s two lead authors, quoting from Dazeddigital.com.
While the study did not confirm that there was life on Enceladus, it did reveal that microbes were one possible explanation for the high amounts of methane.
However, more research will be needed to determine if there is indeed life on Saturn’s moons.
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