Saturn's moon Enceladus is one of the Solar System's prime extraterrestrial locations for life to thrive. It harbors a global salty ocean that internal heating theoretically keeps at temperatures hospitable to an alien marine ecosystem.
Detecting that life, however, is not such an easy matter. The moon is enclosed by a shell of ice that's estimated to be 5 kilometers thick (3.1 miles) at its thinnest point, and the ocean below it is 10 kilometers deep. This would pose a huge enough challenge here on Earth, never mind a moon half a Solar System away.
But we may not need to go to all the effort of drilling through Enceladus's shell after all. A new study finds that we ought to be able to detect life on the icy moon in the plumes of salty water that erupt from its surface – even if there's not all that much life there.
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