Evidence has been obtained for the presence of a large ocean with liquid water under the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus, which suggests the possibility of the existence of extraterrestrial microorganisms.
The interplanetary probe "Cassini" found evidence of the existence of a large ocean of liquid water under the surface of Enceladus, in this regard, it can be assumed about the possibility of the existence of extraterrestrial microorganisms. This was reported on the website of the American space agency NASA.
Enceladus is the sixth largest moon of Saturn. It was discovered back in 1789 by William Herschel, but remained poorly understood until the early 1980s, when two Voyager interplanetary probes approached it. The hypothesis of the existence of an ocean on Enceladus was put forward back in 2005, when the Cassini probe photographed geysers of water ice and steam in its southern hemisphere. Later, scientists came to the conclusion that the geysers have a higher temperature compared to other regions of the satellite
New gravimetric measurements make it possible to draw conclusions about the internal structure of the satellite. They indicate that the underground ocean is located at a depth of 30-40 km, and its thickness is about 10 km.
The Cassini probe has circled Enceladus 19 times. Between 2010 and 2012. the device flew at a distance of 100 km from the satellite: once over the northern hemisphere and twice over the southern one.
Scientists found that as a result of Enceladus's gravity, Cassini's speed changed by 0.2-0.3 mm / s, which allowed the researchers to calculate how the mass distribution inside the satellite occurs.