IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v558y2018i7711d10.1038_s41586-018-0246-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Macromolecular organic compounds from the depths of Enceladus

Author

Listed:
  • Frank Postberg

    (Universität Heidelberg
    Universität Heidelberg
    Institut für Geologische Wissenschaften, Freie Universität Berlin)

  • Nozair Khawaja

    (Universität Heidelberg)

  • Bernd Abel

    (Leibniz-Institute für Oberflächenmodifizierung (IOM))

  • Gael Choblet

    (Université de Nantes)

  • Christopher R. Glein

    (Southwest Research Institute)

  • Murthy S. Gudipati

    (California Institute of Technology)

  • Bryana L. Henderson

    (California Institute of Technology)

  • Hsiang-Wen Hsu

    (University of Colorado)

  • Sascha Kempf

    (University of Colorado)

  • Fabian Klenner

    (Universität Heidelberg)

  • Georg Moragas-Klostermeyer

    (Universität Stuttgart)

  • Brian Magee

    (Southwest Research Institute
    University of Colorado)

  • Lenz Nölle

    (Universität Heidelberg)

  • Mark Perry

    (Johns Hopkins University)

  • René Reviol

    (Universität Heidelberg)

  • Jürgen Schmidt

    (University of Oulu)

  • Ralf Srama

    (Universität Stuttgart)

  • Ferdinand Stolz

    (Leibniz-Institute für Oberflächenmodifizierung (IOM)
    Universität Leipzig)

  • Gabriel Tobie

    (Université de Nantes)

  • Mario Trieloff

    (Universität Heidelberg
    Universität Heidelberg)

  • J. Hunter Waite

    (Université de Nantes)

Abstract

Saturn’s moon Enceladus harbours a global water ocean1, which lies under an ice crust and above a rocky core2. Through warm cracks in the crust3 a cryo-volcanic plume ejects ice grains and vapour into space4–7 that contain materials originating from the ocean8,9. Hydrothermal activity is suspected to occur deep inside the porous core10–12, powered by tidal dissipation13. So far, only simple organic compounds with molecular masses mostly below 50 atomic mass units have been observed in plume material6,14,15. Here we report observations of emitted ice grains containing concentrated and complex macromolecular organic material with molecular masses above 200 atomic mass units. The data constrain the macromolecular structure of organics detected in the ice grains and suggest the presence of a thin organic-rich film on top of the oceanic water table, where organic nucleation cores generated by the bursting of bubbles allow the probing of Enceladus’ organic inventory in enhanced concentrations.

Suggested Citation

  • Frank Postberg & Nozair Khawaja & Bernd Abel & Gael Choblet & Christopher R. Glein & Murthy S. Gudipati & Bryana L. Henderson & Hsiang-Wen Hsu & Sascha Kempf & Fabian Klenner & Georg Moragas-Klosterme, 2018. "Macromolecular organic compounds from the depths of Enceladus," Nature, Nature, vol. 558(7711), pages 564-568, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:558:y:2018:i:7711:d:10.1038_s41586-018-0246-4
    DOI: 10.1038/s41586-018-0246-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0246-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/s41586-018-0246-4?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yamei Li & Norio Kitadai & Yasuhito Sekine & Hiroyuki Kurokawa & Yuko Nakano & Kristin Johnson-Finn, 2022. "Geoelectrochemistry-driven alteration of amino acids to derivative organics in carbonaceous chondrite parent bodies," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 13(1), pages 1-14, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:558:y:2018:i:7711:d:10.1038_s41586-018-0246-4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.