--- title: "Scientists Extremely Intrigued to Find Ingredients for Life on Enceladus" description: "Enceladus, an icy, 300 miles-in-diameter Moon that orbits Saturn, contains all of the six major ingredients for life after all." date: "2023-06-15" modified: "2023-06-15" authors: - name: "Maggie Harrison Dupré" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/mharrison" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-ingredients-for-life-encaladus" categories: - "Astronomy" - "Exobiology" - "Space" tags: - "alien life" - "enceladus" - "saturn" - "the digest" --- # Scientists Extremely Intrigued to Find Ingredients for Life on Enceladus ![Enceladus, an icy, 300 miles-in-diameter Moon that orbits Saturn, contains all of the six major ingredients for life after all.]() *\Image: NASA Visualization Technology Applications and Development / Futurism\* ## Herbs and Spices A breakthrough new study appears to confirm that Enceladus — an icy, 300 miles-in-diameter moon that orbits Saturn — contains *all* of the six major ingredients for life, leading scientists to believe that the intriguing Saturnine satellite might indeed be habitable. As [*The Wall Street Journal* reports](), scientists have been intrigued by Enceladus for years now, as previous studies had [shown the presence]() of five of the six major building blocks of life: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur. Phosphorous, however — the sixth element essential for all known life — was nowhere to be found. Until now, that is. According to this [new research](), by an international team of researchers and published in the journal *Nature* on Wednesday, phosphorous is located on the moon after all, found in the form of phosphate and buried deep in Encelades' salty subsurface oceans. "Life as we know it doesn’t operate without it," Christopher Glein, a geochemist from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio and a study co-author, told the *WSJ* of the now-not-missing element. "It is absolutely critical to your DNA." ## Juice World Detecting the phosphate was a fairly tall order, as Encelades' element-rich ocean is trapped beneath roughly 30-mile-deep sheets of frozen ice. But as the *WSJ* notes, geysers at the Moon's South Pole are known to blast plumes containing icy material from that ocean into the Moon's surrounding orbit. And excitingly, before it death-dove into Saturn's atmosphere back in 2017, NASA's since-departed Cassini spacecraft had actually gathered some samples of this geyser-rocketed ocean matter. The researchers were able to analyze roughly 1,000 samples of said [geyser spittle](), and of those thousand or so samples, nine contained phosphate. "This is the final \[study\] saying, 'Yes, Enceladus does have all of the ingredients that typical Earth life would need to live and that the ocean there is habitable for life as we know it," NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory chemist Morgan Cable, who was not involved in the new research, told the *WSJ*, adding that while the discovery doesn't necessarily mean that there's life currently on Enceladus, it means it could potentially host it. "The next step is to figure out if indeed it is inhabited, and it is going to take a future mission to answer that question," Cable continued. "But this is exciting, because it makes Enceladus an even more compelling destination to go and do that kind of search." **More on Enceladus:** [*NASA Tests Snake Robot Designed to Look for Alien Life on Icy Moons*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've reported extensively on the rise of AI as a cultural and business force shaping the media industry, and more broadly how those dynamics are changing how we all consume and share information and relate to one another. I'm also fascinated by public health policy and ethics, the role of emerging tech in politics and governance — and the powerful people and forces at those intersections — climate change, and the environment. My investigation on Sports Illustrated's use of AI-generated authors with fictional biographies won a 2024 Mirror Award for "Best Story on Media Coverage of Artificial Intelligence in Journalism and the Media" from Syracuse University's SI Newhouse School, I contributed to Niemen Lab's 2025 Predictions for Journalism series, and I've discussed my work for Futurism during appearances on NPR, CNN, the BBC, the CBC, and more. I grew up in rural Pennsylvania and attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where I played Division I field hockey for the Minutewomen as a midfielder. Since then, I've lived in New Orleans, Louisiana and Manhattan, New York. I spend my free time running, reading, perusing archival fashion, and searching for the world’s best negroni. I also have a debonair tuxedo cat, Westley, who's named after "The Princess Bride." ### Author social links [Bluesky]()