{"id":80263,"date":"2018-06-30T14:22:23","date_gmt":"2018-06-30T21:22:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/06\/saturns-moon-enceladus-is-now-the-likeliest-place-to-find-alien-life"},"modified":"2018-06-30T14:22:23","modified_gmt":"2018-06-30T21:22:23","slug":"saturns-moon-enceladus-is-now-the-likeliest-place-to-find-alien-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2018\/06\/saturns-moon-enceladus-is-now-the-likeliest-place-to-find-alien-life","title":{"rendered":"Saturn\u2019s moon Enceladus is now the likeliest place to find alien life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/saturns-moon-enceladus-is-now-the-likeliest-place-to-find-alien-life2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When a massive saltwater ocean was found hidden beneath the icy crust of Saturn\u2019s moon Enceladus back in 2015, astronomers were cautiously optimistic that this watery world could have just the right conditions to host life. Now, thanks to a new study, Enceladus\u2019 stock has gone up \u2014 way up.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Using data from a dead spacecraft, an international team of astronomers has for the first time discovered complex organic (carbon-containing) molecules \u2014 the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/mach\/space\/dwarf-planet-has-life-s-building-blocks-nasa-probe-shows-n722381\">building blocks of life<\/a> \u2014 spewing from Enceladus. The new finding, described in a paper published online June 27 in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-018-0246-4\">journal Nature<\/a>, makes the small icy moon the most promising place beyond Earth to find life in the solar system.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEnceladus\u2019 subsurface ocean is a habitable place. The big question is if it is inhabited,\u201d Frank Postberg, a planetary scientist at the University of Heidelberg in Germany and the study\u2019s lead author, told NBC News MACH in an email.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/mach\/science\/saturn-s-moon-enceladus-now-likeliest-place-find-alien-life-ncna887921?cid=sm_npd_nn_fb_ma\">https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/mach\/science\/saturn-s-moon-enceladus...d_nn_fb_ma<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When a massive saltwater ocean was found hidden beneath the icy crust of Saturn\u2019s moon Enceladus back in 2015, astronomers were cautiously optimistic that this watery world could have just the right conditions to host life. Now, thanks to a new study, Enceladus\u2019 stock has gone up \u2014 way up. Using data from a dead [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1527],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alien-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80263\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}