Enceladus

Enceladus' is a small icy moon of Saturn. The surface of Enceladus consists of fresh, clean ice making it one of the most reflective bodies in the Sol System. Enceladus was discovered by William Herschel on August 28, 1789, during the first use of his new telescope. Alongside Jupiter's moon, Europa, Enceladus was considered a candidate for extraterrestrial life although Europa took more of the spotlight.

History

Endeladus formed over four billion years ago from the primordial planetary disc surrounding Sol. It was captured by the ever growing Saturn and became one of its major moons. In its early history, Enceladus' surface was liquid but with the cooling of the entire Sol System an upper layer of ice soon formed to cover the inner ocean.

Approximately 3.1 billion years ago, the first primordial life formed in the Enceladian oceans near the rocky floor near the hydrothermal vents. As with Europa, there were no exterior sources of extinction level events thanks in part to the protective ice surface layer.

Humans first landed on Enceladus during the Great Solar System Tour where they discovered the first evidence of life beneath the icy surface, but it wouldn't be until 2162 during the Project Deepdive mission when the Enceladus Subsurface Ocean Explorer or ESOE for short, came across small eel-like creatures living in the subglacial ocean.

Eventually more and more research stations were set up on Enceladus in order to study the natural evolution of a subglacial species. Terraforming the world was suggested and quickly abandoned as it was discovered that any major change to the undersea environment would do irreparable damage to the native undersea ecosystem.

Environment

Much like Europa, Enceladus has a thin upper ice layer crust which covers a thicker deep lunar wide ocean which itself sits on a rocky seafloor.

Large plumes and cryovolcanoes shooting geyser-like jets of ice particles from the heavily cratered surface into space, can be found around this frigid ball of ice. The oceans consist of hydrothermal vents and sometimes tremors caused by the tectonic activity.

There is a danger that Enceladus might be destroyed by the tidal force of Saturn in 30 million years. Fortunately, other moons of Saturn, such as Tethys, Dione or Rhea can also host the life of the moon.