Enceladus appears to have almost everything life should need — water, chemistry, hydrothermal energy and an ocean capable of lasting geological ages. If we search it thoroughly and find nothing alive, that failure may become one of astrobiology’s most important discoveries: evidence that habitability alone is not enough to make life happen.
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Enceladus appears to have almost everything life should need — water, chemistry, hydrothermal energy and an ocean capable of lasting geological ages. If we search it thoroughly and find nothing alive, that failure may become one of astrobiology’s most important discoveries: evidence that habitability alone is not enough to make life happen.

Enceladus offers astrobiology an unusually disciplined question. Saturn’s small icy moon has liquid water, contact between that water…