14 DAY TRIAL // New observations of the giant cosmic sponge orbiting Saturn suggest that it might contain all the right ingredients for life. If proven, this could mean that ideal conditions for the appearance of life are not so scarce and that what we thought to be a probabilistic oddity may in fact happen a lot more often.
The giant sponge's name is Hyperion, and it's a really strange satellite of Saturn. It's strange because it looks like a bath sponge, due to the fact that impact craters are well preserved and so dense, giving the rock the porous aspect. It's not even a sphere, just a highly irregular body, thought to be a fragment of a larger celestial body, sent into orbit by an ancient impact.
Now, new high-resolution images taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft seem to indicate the presence of vast amounts of hydrocarbons in its cuplike craters, the largest being approximately 120 km in diameter and 10 km deep.
Initial analysis of the images shows a dark material lying at the bottom of these craters and indicates an identical chemical signature to hydrocarbons, organic molecules consisting of hydrogen and carbon, that are also a common presence in meteorites, comets and interstellar dust.
"These molecules, when embedded in ice and exposed to ultraviolet light, form new molecules of biological significance," said planetary scientist Dale Cruikshank, author of a recent study on the dark material, appearing in the journal Nature.
"This doesn't mean that we have found life, but it is a further indication that the basic chemistry needed for life is widespread in the universe," he explained.
Yet another must have material has been found in the numerous craters of the space object, carbon dioxide, but in a strange solid form, attached to water ice, so it would seem that the unusual rock may be a recipe for life, just without the flame to start the oven.
The fact that carbon dioxide is attached to water ice and other chemicals on the surface makes it highly stable, but unfortunately it will most probably evaporate over long periods of time.
"I'm convinced that this complexing of carbon dioxide and water ice may be a key to understanding Hyperion's spongy and porous nature," concluded Cruikshank.