This map shows the composition of a portion of Hyperion's surface. Blue shows the maximum exposure of frozen water, red denotes carbon dioxide ice ("dry ice"), magenta indicates regions of water plus carbon dioxide, yellow is a mix of carbon dioxide and an unidentified material. Photo Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/Ames/Space Science InstituteWashington, July 6 (ANI): The Cassini spacecraft has found cup like craters filled with hydrocarbons on Saturn’s moons Hyperion, a find, astronomers believe, may indicate more widespread presence in our solar system of the basic chemicals necessary for life.
The spacecraft found water and carbon dioxide ices, as well as dark material, as it flew close by the moon in September 2005.
According to a NASA release, Cassini's ultraviolet imaging spectrograph and visual and infrared mapping spectrometer captured compositional variations in Hyperion's surface.
These instruments, capable of mapping mineral and chemical features of the moon, sent back data confirming the presence of frozen water found by earlier ground-based observations, and also discovered solid carbon dioxide (dry ice) mixed in unexpected ways with the ordinary ice.
Images of the brightest regions of Hyperion's surface showed frozen water in crystalline form like that found on Earth.
"Most of Hyperion's surface ice is a mix of frozen water and organic dust, but carbon dioxide ice is also prominent. The carbon dioxide is not pure, but is somehow chemically attached to other molecules," said Dale Cruikshank, a planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif., and the paper's lead author in the current issue of the journal Nature.
"Of special interest is the presence on Hyperion of hydrocarbons--combinations of carbon and hydrogen atoms that are found in comets, meteorites, and the dust in our galaxy. These molecules, when embedded in ice, and exposed to ultraviolet light, form new molecules of biological significance. 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 said.
According to Cruikshank, the observations available online at http://ciclops.org/view.php?id=3303 provide keys to understanding the moon’s origin and evolution over 4.5 billion years.
This is also the first time scientists have been able to map the surface material on Hyperion, he said.
Hyperion, Saturn's eighth largest moon, has a chaotic spin and orbits Saturn every 21 days.
Prior spacecraft data from other moons of Saturn, as well as Jupiter's moons Ganymede and Callisto, have also suggested that the carbon dioxide molecule is "complexed," or attached with other surface material in multiple ways.
"We think that ordinary carbon dioxide will evaporate from Saturn's moons over long periods of time, but it appears to be much more stable when it is attached to other molecules,” said Cruikshank. (ANI)