Saturn Satellite Contains High Concentration of Phosphorus, "Expectations for Life-Like Organisms on Earth"

Seawater spewing from the subsurface of a Saturn satellite has been found to contain an ultra-high concentration of phosphoric acid, which is said to be the key to the birth of life on Earth.

Enceladus, a satellite of Saturn, is a small satellite with a diameter of about 500 kilometers whose surface is covered with thick ice, and water from the subsurface ocean is gushing out like a geyser into space through cracks in the ice.

An international research team from Japan, Europe, and the U.S., including the Tokyo Institute of Technology, announced on April 14 that they had discovered high concentrations of phosphoric acid in the seawater beneath Enceladus and analyzed the factors behind this finding.

Based on data collected by NASA's (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Cassini spacecraft, the team examined water droplets that erupted from Enceladus, and the concentration of phosphoric acid in the seawater underground is thought to be several thousand times higher than that of seawater on Earth.

A water environment with a high concentration of phosphorus, an element essential for sustaining life, is said to be the key to the birth of life.

Professor Yasuto Sekine of Tokyo Institute of Technology says, "We can expect the existence of similar life on Enceladus, which could be called a sibling of life on Earth.