Enceladus: A second genesis of life at Saturn?

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 14 December 2015

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Discovery invites you on a mission to the most intriguing body in the solar system – Saturn’s moon Enceladus. It’s a small icy world with gigantic geysers, blasting water into space at supersonic speeds. It’s also become the most promising place among the planets to search for extra-terrestrial life. These astonishing discoveries come from Nasa’s Cassini mission to Saturn launched 18 years ago and still underway. The BBC’s Jonathan Amos talks to scientists who have been at the centre of the unfolding story of Enceladus and those who want to return to answer the great question which it poses.

(Photo: Enceladus. Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading from the BBC.
0:03.0	The details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use,
0:07.0	go to BBCworldservice.com slash podcasts. broadcasts.
0:24.4	Where is the most promising place to search for extraterrestrial life among the planets of our solar system. The big question today for discovery from the BBC World Service.
0:28.8	Is there liquid water? Yes. Is the liquid water in a salty ocean that's large and therefore long lived?
0:38.0	Yes. Are there organics in the ocean? Yes. Is there a heat source? Yes.
0:46.0	Enceladus is the most accessible extraterrestrial habitable zone we have in the solar
0:51.7	system. That's what we've learned from
0:53.3	Cassini. The facts trump our expectations. I can't imagine anything better from
0:59.6	an astrobiology point of view.
1:01.1	Picture a distant and to biology point of view.
1:03.0	Picture a distant and tiny ice-encrusted world, not much wider than England at its
1:08.9	broadest.
1:09.9	Gleaning white and unimaginably cold, it's one of the many moons in orbit around the giant ring planet Saturn.
1:17.0	Doesn't sound anything special, but Enceladus has become one of the most intriguing bodies in our solar system.
1:26.0	For one thing, it has a hundred gigantic geezers,
1:30.0	blasting water vapour, ice and dust from its south pole. But they're just part of the
1:35.2	wonder of Insolidus. I'm Jonathan Amos and in this edition of Discovery will be
1:40.2	charting how in the past decade this once obscure little moon has become for many the most
1:45.8	likely place to discover life beyond Earth.
1:49.5	It's all down to a visiting space probe launched from Earth 18 years ago and which has been flying around the Saturnian system since 2004.
1:58.0	Cassini.
	...

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