PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Cassini proves complex chemistry in Enceladus ocean

2025-10-01
(Press-News.org) Scientists digging through data collected by the Cassini spacecraft have found new complex organic molecules spewing from Saturn’s moon Enceladus. This is a clear sign that complex chemical reactions are taking place within its underground ocean. Some of these reactions could be part of chains that lead to even more complex, potentially biologically relevant molecules.

Published today in Nature Astronomy, this discovery further strengthens the case for a dedicated European Space Agency (ESA) mission to orbit and land on Enceladus.

In 2005, Cassini found the first evidence that Enceladus has a hidden ocean beneath its icy surface. Jets of water burst from cracks close to the moon’s south pole, shooting ice grains into space. Smaller than grains of sand, some of the tiny pieces of ice fall back onto the moon’s surface, whilst others escape and form a ring around Saturn that traces Enceladus’s orbit.

Lead author Nozair Khawaja explains what we already knew: “Cassini was detecting samples from Enceladus all the time as it flew through Saturn’s E ring. We had already found many organic molecules in these ice grains, including precursors for amino acids.

The ice grains in the ring can be hundreds of years old. As they have aged, they may have been ‘weathered’ and therefore altered by intense space radiation. Scientists wanted to investigate fresh grains ejected much more recently to get a better idea of what exactly is going on in Enceladus’s ocean.

Fortunately, we already had the data. Back in 2008, Cassini flew straight through the icy spray. Pristine grains ejected only minutes before hit the spacecraft’s Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) instrument at about 18 km/s. These were not only the freshest ice grains Cassini had ever detected, but also the fastest.

The speed mattered. Nozair explains why:

“The ice grains contain not just frozen water, but also other molecules, including organics. At lower impact speeds, the ice shatters, and the signal from clusters of water molecules can hide the signal from certain organic molecules. But when the ice grains hit CDA fast, water molecules don’t cluster, and we have a chance to see these previously hidden signals.”

It took years to build up knowledge from previous flybys and then apply it to decipher this data. But now, Nozair’s team has revealed what kind of molecules were present inside the fresh ice grains.

They saw that certain organic molecules that had already been found distributed in the E ring were also present in the fresh ice grains. This confirms that they are created within Enceladus’s ocean.

They also found totally new molecules that had never been seen before in ice grains from Enceladus. For the chemists reading, the newly detected molecular fragments included aliphatic, (hetero)cyclic ester/alkenes, ethers/ethyl and, tentatively, nitrogen- and oxygen-bearing compounds.

 

On Earth, these same molecules are involved in the chains of chemical reactions that ultimately lead to the more complex molecules that are essential for life.

“There are many possible pathways from the organic molecules we found in the Cassini data to potentially biologically relevant compounds, which enhances the likelihood that the moon is habitable,” says Nozair.

“There is much more in the data that we are currently exploring, so we are looking forward to finding out more in the near future.”

Co-author Frank Postberg adds: “These molecules we found in the freshly ejected material prove that the complex organic molecules Cassini detected in Saturn’s E ring are not just a product of long exposure to space, but are readily available in Enceladus’s ocean.”

Nicolas Altobelli, ESA Cassini project scientist adds: “It’s fantastic to see new discoveries emerging from Cassini data almost two decades after it was collected. It really showcases the long-term impact of our space missions. I look forward to comparing data from Cassini with data from ESA’s other missions to visit the icy moons of Saturn and Jupiter.”

Returning to Enceladus

Discoveries from Cassini are valuable for planning a future ESA mission dedicated to Enceladus. Studies for this ambitious mission have already begun. The plan is to fly through the jets and even land on the moon's south polar terrain to collect samples.

A team of scientists and engineers is already considering the selection of modern scientific instruments that the spacecraft would carry. This latest result made using CDA will help guide that decision.

Enceladus ticks all the boxes to be a habitable environment that could support life: the presence of liquid water, a source of energy, a specific set of chemical elements and complex organic molecules. A mission that takes measurements directly from the moon’s surface, seeking out signs of life, would offer Europe a front seat in Solar System science.

“Even not finding life on Enceladus would be a huge discovery, because it raises serious questions about why life is not present in such an environment when the right conditions are there,” says Nozair.

 

 

Notes for editors

‘Detection of Organic Compounds in Freshly Ejected Ice Grains from Enceladus’s Ocean’ by N. Khawaja et al. is published today in Nature Astronomy. DOI: 10.1038/s41550-025-02655-y

Lead author Nozair Khawaja conducted the research at Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Stuttgart, both in Germany. Frank Postberg is also affiliated with Freie Universität Berlin.

Cassini-Huygens was a cooperative project of NASA, ESA and the Italian Space Agency. It comprised two elements: the Cassini orbiter and the Huygens probe.

Cassini’s Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) was led by the University of Stuttgart in Germany.

 

For more information please contact:

media@esa.int

END


ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Parkinson’s ‘trigger’ directly observed in human brain tissue for the first time

2025-10-01
Scientists have, for the first time, directly visualised and quantified the protein clusters believed to trigger Parkinson’s, marking a major advance in the study of the world’s fastest-growing neurological disease. These tiny clusters, called alpha-synuclein oligomers, have long been considered the likely culprits for Parkinson’s disease to start developing in the brain, but until now, they have evaded direct detection in human brain tissue. Now, researchers from the University of Cambridge, UCL, the Francis Crick Institute ...

Next-generation CAR T cells could expand solid cancer treatment options

2025-10-01
Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapy, which uses a patient’s own immune cells to fight cancer, has emerged as a powerful way to treat lymphoma and other blood cancers. But researchers have struggled to adapt the treatment for solid tumors—including prostate, breast, lung and ovarian cancer—which make up about 90% of all cancer cases. Now, a research team from the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center, in collaboration with City of Hope, a national cancer research and treatment organization, ...

Fungi set the stage for life on land hundreds of millions of years earlier than thought

2025-10-01
New research published in Nature Ecology & Evolution sheds light on the timelines and pathways of evolution of fungi, finding evidence of their influence on ancient terrestrial ecosystems. The study, led by researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) and collaborators, indicates the diversification of fungi hundreds of millions of years before the emergence of land plants. The five paths to a complex world Professor Gergely J. Szöllősi, author on this study and head of the Model-Based Evolutionary ...

DNA evidence closes gaps in global conservation databases for Amazon wildlife

2025-10-01
PHOTOS: https://sandiegozoo.box.com/s/h8ne3q1md09rpor6ewp7070qvzv9k7nh SAN DIEGO (Oct. 1, 2025) – Recent studies led by an international consortium of researchers, including scientists from the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance and the Museo de Historia Natural de la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, unveiled groundbreaking findings in biodiversity conservation through in situ DNA barcoding in the Peruvian Amazon.  Measuring the earth’s biological richness in one of its most remote and biodiverse regions is no small task. The Peruvian Amazon is in imminent danger of losing species to wildfires and habitat ...

New software tool aims to help scientists better analyze complex spatial data from tissues

2025-10-01
New York, NY [October 1, 2025]—Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, Boston Medical Center, and Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, have developed a software platform to help scientists more easily analyze the molecular structure of tissue in both healthy and disease states. Details on the platform, called Giotto Suite, were reported in the October 1 online issue of Nature Methods [DOI: 10.1038/s41592-025-02817-w]. In recent years, new technologies have made it possible to capture detailed maps of RNA and proteins within intact tissues—a field known as spatial omics. These ...

And Swiss glaciers continue to melt

2025-10-01
Even the United Nations International Year of Glaciers' Preservation has seen further massive melting of glaciers in Switzerland. A winter with little snow was followed by heat waves in June 2025 that saw glaciers nearing the record levels of losses of 2022. Snow reserves from the winter were already depleted in the first half of July, and the ice masses began to melt earlier than had rarely ever been recorded. The cool weather in July provided some relief and prevented an even worse outcome. Nevertheless, almost a further three per cent of the ice volume was lost across Switzerland this year, ...

Scientists discover a key role of protons and superoxide ions in the respiratory chain

2025-10-01
Researchers from the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) and CIBER-BBN, in collaboration with teams from the University of Barcelona (UB) and the Institute of Chemical Research – cicCartuja, University of Seville-CSIC, have discovered that long-distance charge transport between two key proteins in the mitochondrial respiratory chain — cytochrome c and respiratory complex III — is mediated by protons and superoxide ions, which are reactive oxygen species. The study was recently published in the journal Small ...

Rare fossil reveals ancient leeches weren’t bloodsuckers

2025-10-01
A newly described fossil reveals that leeches are at least 200 million years older than scientists previously thought, and that their earliest ancestors may have feasted not on blood, but on smaller marine creatures.  “This is the only body fossil we’ve ever found of this entire group,” said Karma Nanglu, a paleontologist with the University of California, Riverside. He collaborated with researchers from the University of Toronto, University of São Paulo, and Ohio State University on a paper describing the fossil, which is now published in PeerJ. Roughly ...

Study links shift work to higher risk of kidney stones, influenced by lifestyle factors

2025-10-01
Rochester, MN, October 1, 2025 – A study evaluating how various shift work patterns contribute to kidney stone risk has revealed that shift workers have a 15% higher risk of developing kidney stones, especially younger workers and those with low levels of manual labor. Body mass index (BMI), fluid intake, and other lifestyle factors play key roles contributing to the occurrence of kidney stones. The findings of the novel study in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, published by Elsevier, indicate that kidney stone prevention efforts should extend to shift workers. Long-term shift work, identified ...

Stronger together: Community involvement is key for new transport adoption

2025-10-01
Demand-responsive transport (DRT) is promoted as an inclusive solution to first- and last-mile mobility challenges, but little is known about the barriers to adoption among people with poor health. Dr. Haruka Kato, a junior associate professor at Osaka Metropolitan University, examined the factors shaping this population's acceptance and use of DRT in Senboku New Town, Osaka. The study applied the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology-3 (UTAUT-3) to assess the opportunities and challenges for using DRT. The findings reveal that community involvement is a powerful driver of acceptance. The study showed that residents' ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

A step toward diagnosing the flu with your tongue

Pathogenic yeast strains found in urban air but not along the coast

NYU Grossman School of Medicine leader to receive the 2025 Research Achievement Award

New AI tool detects hidden warning signs of disease

Astrocyte-endothelial cell interaction in the aging brain

When Washington tried to starve industries of loans—and failed

Cassini proves complex chemistry in Enceladus ocean

Parkinson’s ‘trigger’ directly observed in human brain tissue for the first time

Next-generation CAR T cells could expand solid cancer treatment options

Fungi set the stage for life on land hundreds of millions of years earlier than thought

DNA evidence closes gaps in global conservation databases for Amazon wildlife

New software tool aims to help scientists better analyze complex spatial data from tissues

And Swiss glaciers continue to melt

Scientists discover a key role of protons and superoxide ions in the respiratory chain

Rare fossil reveals ancient leeches weren’t bloodsuckers

Study links shift work to higher risk of kidney stones, influenced by lifestyle factors

Stronger together: Community involvement is key for new transport adoption

Scientific evidence that pianists can change timbre through touch

A polygenic risk score may predict future breast cancer in patients with early-stage diagnoses

Genetic test can predict who could develop invasive breast cancer

Uncovering the molecular basis of long COVID brain fog

Poor sleep may accelerate brain ageing

The Lancet Infectious Diseases: New study suggests risk of long COVID in children may be twice as high after a second infection

Risk of long COVID in kids doubles after second infection

Patient-reported outcome analysis of NRG Oncology trial in limited-stage small cell lung cancer suggests quality of life benefit with twice - (vs once -) daily radiation

NRG Oncology trial analysis shows improvement in survival outcomes for glioblastoma patients receiving proton therapy, trial moves to phase III

In a landmark move, ECMWF is poised to announce a new phase in its data sharing strategy

Seal’s sensitive whiskers hold key to foiling fish escapes

Neurological outcomes after patients suffer cardiac arrest at home are similar between low- and high-income areas in Vienna

Precision without incision: the new era of functional radiosurgery

[Press-News.org] Cassini proves complex chemistry in Enceladus ocean