Saturn's moon Enceladus has all the ingredients for life in its icy oceans. But is life there?

[Admin]

For the first time, phosphorus — the rarest of six elements upon which life as we know it depends — has been found in a tiny ocean-bearing moon in our solar system.

Saturn's moon Enceladus has all the ingredients for life in its icy oceans. But is life there? : Read more

 

[rod]

Here is another report and discussion on Enceladus and life evolving there too. https://forums.space.com/threads/sa...ld-life-be-lurking-under-its-icy-shell.61631/

 

[rod]

"For the first time, phosphorus — the rarest of six elements upon which life as we know it depends — has been found in a tiny ocean-bearing moon in our solar system. Scientists combing through data sent home by NASA's Cassini spacecraft nearly 15 years ago said they have found plentiful phosphorus in water geysers that routinely blast into space from Enceladus, a tiny moon of Saturn and one of the most likely places in the solar system where life might exist. Enceladus is an ice-covered moon that harbors an enormous ocean of liquid water underneath an icy crust. Scientists have previously found other key building blocks of life in the moon's ocean including carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur and oxygen. However, phosphorus, which teams up with sugars to form a skeleton to DNA molecules and also helps repair and maintain cell membranes, had so far eluded detection."

My notes. Hope for life at Saturn moon is a long way from Charles Darwin warm little pond view in his 1871 and 1882 letters.

ref - https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/let...ETT-7471.xml&query=warm little pond#hit.rank2

ref -https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-13711.xml&query=general%20law%20of%20nature#hit.rank1

Here is a summary of four points in these letters that I learned. 1. A warm little pond is postulated for the origin of life on Earth but Charles Darwin thought if abiogenesis operating in a warm little pond in his time, perhaps such life evolving from non-living matter would be quickly destroyed by existing life and eaten.
2. No good evidence for abiogenesis taking place in Charles Darwin time seen in nature.
3. The law of continuity is needed for abiogenesis to work apparently
4. Someday a general law of nature developed to describe and show abiogenesis like other laws of nature, for example the laws of motion or law of gravity.

Apparently all four I list here are missing in science today, even with natural law operating in nature in a uniform manner, i.e., *law of continuity*. When I consider point #1, it is good IMO to avoid catastrophism that wipes out abiogenesis creating life from non-living matter at the very beginning otherwise many abiogenesis events must be envisioned to replace the earlier efforts that failed. These are four points I learned by reading some of Charles Darwin letters on the warm little pond and origin of life on Earth.