One of Saturn's small, white moons has the ideal conditions for life in its icy crust-covered ocean.
NASA's Cassini spacecraft said the icy, ocean-covered body possesses ample amounts of hydrogen gas.
The discovery makes Enceladus the only place - apart from Earth - where a local energy source for life has been discovered. "These results demonstrate the interconnected nature of NASA's science missions that are getting us closer to answering whether we are indeed alone or not".
The new research, which were published Thursday in the journal Science, "indicates there is chemical potential to support microbial systems", he said.
NASA's Saturn probe Cassini observed a plume of water from a crack in Saturn's moon.
The US space agency NASA's Cassini spacecraft has discovered hydrogen in the plume of gas and icy particles spraying from Saturn's sixth largest moon Enceladus.
Although Cassini hasn't yet shown presence of phosphorus and sulfur in the ocean, scientists suspect them to be, since the rocky core of Enceladus is thought to be chemically similar to meteorites that contain the two elements.
"It would be wonderful but we haven't discovered organisms in the ocean on Enceladus", said Voytek during the announcement. Finding this hydrothermal process on Enceladus shows the potential for the existence of life within its ocean.
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Saturn's moon Enceladus and Jupiter's moon Europa have been deemed the places most likely to host life outside of Earth, according to NASA scientists.
After that ends, it's not clear when another spacecraft will head to Saturn's moon.
Geologists announced in September that earthquakes on Earth can produce hydrogen.
In a related perspective, Jeffrey Seewald of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who was not involved in the study, described the findings as "an important advance in assessing the habitability of Enceladus".
The oceans exist a few miles below the surface of Enceladus, therefore researchers must draw conclusions from the vapors that rise into the atmosphere through the cracks in the ice. A possible plume of material has also been spotted erupting from the surface of Europa previous year, in the same place that one was spotted by Hubble in 2014.
Scientists at the Goddard Space Center compared ultraviolet photos the Hubble space telescope took of Europa in 2014, when it first saw the gaseous spray emanating from the moon, and found it again in a 2016 picture.
NASA is planning for a new mission known as the Europa Clipper mission, which is now slated for the early 2020s.
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