IT House reported on December 22 that the Harvard University research team re-sorted the data of the "Cassini" spacecraftIt was found that the gas plume released by Enceladus contained molecules such as methanol, ethane, and oxygen.
The findings were recently published in Nature Astronomy.
The Cassini spacecraft first discovered in 2005 that massive plumes of material had escaped from Enceladus' southern hemisphere into space, having previously been thought to be coming from the subsurface ocean beneath the cracks in the moon's ice.
The Cassini spacecraft flew by Enceladus twice in 2011 and 2012, with data recorded by the spacecraft's onboard ion and neutral mass spectrometers (INMS).
Harvard's Jonah Peter and colleagues analyzed data from two INMS recordings, compared a large known library of mass spectra, and determined the presence of water, carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, and molecular hydrogen in the plume samples.
The team analysed billions of possible components of the plume using statistical analysis techniques, and then found the hydrocarbons hydrogen cyanide (HCN), acetylene (C2H2), propylene (C3H6), and ethane (C2H6), as well as traces of alcohols (methanol) and molecular oxygen.
The researchers believe that although organic molecular oxides were detected on Enceladus, it could not directly confirm the existence of life on Enceladus, but it reinforced the possibility.
IT House attaches ** Reference Address: Peter, Js., nordheim, t.a. &hand, k.p. detection of hcn and diverse redox chemistry in the plume of enceladus. nat astron (2023).