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Hydrogen Emitted by Enceladus, More Evidence of Plumes at Europa

takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

At a NASA press conference on Thursday, scientists from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, NASA's D.C. Headquarters, and the Space Telescope Science Institute announced new observations [nasa.gov] about the "ocean worlds" [nasa.gov] Enceladus and Europa. At Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons, the Cassini spacecraft has measured emissions of hydrogen gas that could indicate a source of chemical energy for life forms. 2016 Hubble observations of Jupiter's moon Europa have found evidence of a water plume emanating from the same location as a plume measured in 2014.

The Cassini spacecraft took a "deep dive" into one of the Enceladus [wikipedia.org] plumes on Oct. 28, 2015. The plume contains about 98% water, 0.4-1.4% hydrogen, and a mixture of carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, and other molecules. The findings support the possibility of hot water interacting with rock at hydrothermal vents [wikipedia.org], a type of habitat known to support life without the need for sunlight. NASA scientists have concluded that Enceladus has all of the conditions and ingredients necessary to support life, although the detection of hydrogen gas does not prove that the internal ocean currently contains life forms.

The new Hubble images of Europa [wikipedia.org] show that the height of the plume is about twice that of the one measured in 2014. The location of this periodic plume corresponds with a thermal hotspot on Europa's surface found by the Galileo spacecraft in the 1990s, which was once dismissed as an anomaly. The lack of craters on Europa's surface indicates that water is spraying out of the internal ocean through cracks and reshaping the surface.

The same chemistry detected at Enceladus could also be taking place in interior oceans on other icy worlds [wikipedia.org], such as Ceres, Titan, Ganymede, Callisto, Dione, Rhea, Titania, Triton, Pluto, Eris, Sedna, etc.

Video [youtube.com]. Also at Science Magazine [sciencemag.org], BBC [bbc.com], Space.com [space.com]

Additional link for Hydrogen Emitted by Enceladus, More Evidence of Plumes at Europa

mhajicek [soylentnews.org] writes:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/solar-system/news/a26044/cassini-evidence-hydrothermal-vents-enceladus/ [popularmechanics.com]

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