Is there life on Saturn? NASA about to unlock the secrets of a mysterious water world

USA: NASA will this week search for signs of life on Saturn by sending a probe into a plume of icy vapour coming from one of its 62 moons.

Experts hope their Cassini spacecraft will unlock the secrets of the mysterious Enceladus, which scientists last month revealed is covered by an ocean hidden by an icy shell.

The probe will descend through the moon’s plume – a mixture of water vapour, ice grains and volatile chemicals shot out at 1,360mph from icy geysers.

Instruments on board will take samples and analyse the chemical of cocktails.

Dr Curt Niebur, programme scientist on the £2.1billion space mission, said: “This incredible plunge through the Enceladus plume is an amazing ­opportunity for NASA and its ­international partners on the Cassini mission to ask, ‘Can any icy ocean world host the ­ingredients for life?’”

At 310 miles across, ­Enceladus is the sixth largest of Saturn’s satellites and its about a seventh of the size of our own Moon.

On Wednesday, at 3.22pm UK time, the Cassini probe will shoot through the plume above the satellite’s south polar region at an altitude of 30 miles.

The same spacecraft first spotted the plume in 2005, a year after it arrived in Saturn’s system.

Around 100 geysers erupting from the surface, known as “tiger stripes”, have been identified as its source.

They are thought to have a fiery origin deep beneath the satellite’s surface and are believed to be similar to ­hydrothermal vents on Earth.

These are volcanic fissures on the ocean floor where sea water percolating through fractures in the bedrock is heated to high ­temperatures.

Their chemistry gives rise to areas teeming with life in some of the deepest, coldest and darkest corners of the world’s oceans.