Hydrothermal activity refers to the natural process of hot water and steam moving under the Earth's surface. It usually occurs in volcanic areas where water is heated by magma or hot rocks. This activity can create hot springs, geysers, and even underwater vents where minerals and gases are released into the surrounding environment.
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Cassini, which began its journey over two decades ago, facilitated the publication of more than 3,000 scientific papers with the data it collected and is responsible for several major discoveries, including liquid methane seas on Titan and evidence
of hydrothermal activity on Enceladus.
Suggestions of
hydrothermal activity on Europa led researchers to speculate that life there could resemble ecosystems around hydrothermal vents on Earth and would survive on chemosynthesis, extracting energy from chemicals.
Volcanic and tectonic controls on the distribution and characteristics of
hydrothermal activity at mid-ocean ridges; geochemistry of rock - water interactions and the rate of the associated hydrothermal fluxes in global geochemical mass balances.
Key hypotheses of the origin of this soil include
hydrothermal activity generating sulfate - rich, hydrated deposits on early Mars similar to what is found along the flanks of active Hawaiian volcanoes on Earth.
In an email interview with Newsweek, lead author Gaël Choblet, from the French National Center for Scientific Research, said that while he can not speculate on the presence of alien life on Enceladus, their timescale
for hydrothermal activity does bolster the case that microbial life could emerge.
Hydrothermal activity occurs when seawater infiltrates and reacts with a rocky crust and emerges as a heated, mineral - laden solution, a natural occurrence in Earth's oceans.
The paper from researchers with the Cassini mission, published in the journal Science, indicates hydrogen gas, which could potentially provide a chemical energy source for life, is pouring into the subsurface ocean of Enceladus
from hydrothermal activity on the seafloor.
We found that the particles seen in our images, which were droplets of ocean only hours earlier, bore evidence of large organic molecules and compounds that
indicated hydrothermal activity similar to that observed at deep - sea vents on Earth's seafloor.
The presence of
hydrothermal activity in Enceladus that could last for such a long time has major implications for the potential for life to evolve.
The second paper, recently published in Geophysical Research Letters,
suggests hydrothermal activity as one of two likely sources of methane in the plume of gas and ice particles that erupts from the south polar region of Enceladus.
As NASA explains on its website, among other discoveries, Cassini revealed the icy jets that shoot from Saturn's minuscule moon Enceladus, which showed evidence of an underground ocean
with hydrothermal activity within it.
While hydrothermal activity can produce considerable quantities of hydrogen, in porous rocks often found under seafloors, radiolysis could produce copious amounts as well.
A new study of an impact crater in Finland suggests that
such hydrothermal activity could have lasted up to 1.6 million years — at least 10 times longer than theory suggested, providing plenty of time for life to emerge and spread.
Ceres shows clear signatures of
pervasive hydrothermal activity, aqueous alteration and fluid mobility, so the organic - rich areas may be the result of internal processes.
But he says there is not yet enough evidence to know whether the icy moon
boasts hydrothermal activity, which would provide energy and key elements necessary for life.
The simplest and most consistent explanation of the data is that biological activity played a role in the formation of the tubular textures in the Ries glasses, likely during
postimpact hydrothermal activity.
The possibility of
undersea hydrothermal activity inside icy moons such as Europa at Jupiter and Enceladus at Saturn feeds interest in them as destinations in the quest to find extraterrestrial life.
«If a new theory published last year is correct, then
powerful hydrothermal activity could have been occurring since the formation of the moon, possibly as much as the age of the solar system,» he says, adding that which timescale they are working on — tens of millions or billions — could be determined with future research.
A new analysis of Cassini spacecraft data points to the distinct possibility that Saturn's icy moon Enceladus
exhibits hydrothermal activity on its seafloor.
This cutaway view of Saturn's moon Enceladus is an artist's rendering that depicts
possible hydrothermal activity that may be taking place on and under the seafloor of the moon's subsurface ocean, based on recently published results from NASA's Cassini mission.
On Earth, the most common way to form silica grains of this size is
hydrothermal activity under a specific range of conditions; namely, when slightly alkaline and salty water that is super-saturated with silica undergoes a big drop in temperature.
NASA's Cassini spacecraft has provided scientists the first clear evidence that Saturn's moon Enceladus exhibits signs of present -
day hydrothermal activity which may resemble that seen in the deep oceans on Earth.
The team describes newly discovered geological and biological manifestations of
hydrothermal activity at two sites on young abyssal hills flanking the East Pacific Rise, a fast - spreading portion of the global mid-ocean ridge system.
The authors argue that it comes
from hydrothermal activity on the ocean floor, perhaps seafloor vents like those on Earth that spew H2 and support rich microbial life.
The Dawn probe has previously detected salts, ammonia - rich clays and water ice on Ceres, which together
indicate hydrothermal activity, says study coauthor Carol Raymond, a planetary scientist
They announced strong evidence for a regional sea in 2014, and more recently, in 2015, they shared results that
suggest hydrothermal activity is taking place on the ocean floor.
Hypocenter data for geothermal data system is intended as a tool to identify seismically active areas that are often associated
with hydrothermal activity, thus the content model does not include detailed information that would be important for seismological analysis; such information should be accessed by including related resource links.
Newly discovered geological and biological manifestations
of hydrothermal activity at two sites on the sea floor to the west of Central America are reported by Haymon, lead author, and three other UCSB geologists in the February issue of the journal, Geology.
Thermodynamic model for uplift and deflation episodes (bradyseism) associated with magmatic -
hydrothermal activity at the Campi Flegrei (Italy).
Those analyses are likely to take several weeks, but should provide important insights about the composition of the global ocean beneath Enceladus» surface and
any hydrothermal activity occurring on the ocean floor.
But the signal is contested, and there's no evidence yet of
hydrothermal activity.
Those investigations showed not only that there was an entire ocean of briny water beneath the ice, but also
that hydrothermal activity taking place on and under this alien sea could provide abundant energy and nutrients for ecosystems.