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It is possible that Enceladus' sea floor may be ripe for life.

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Hydrothermal vents are cracks in the planet's crust where geothermally heated water leaks out.

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Hydrothermal vents are commonly found near volcanically active places, areas where tectonic plates are moving apart at spreading centers, ocean basins, and hot-spots.

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Hydrothermal vents exist because the earth is both geologically active and has large amounts of water on its surface and within its crust.

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Scientists first discovered hydrothermal vents in 1977 while exploring an oceanic spreading ridge near the Galapagos Islands. To their amazement, the scientists also found that the hydrothermal vents were surrounded by large numbers of organisms that had never been seen before. These biological communities depend upon chemical processes that result from the interaction of seawater and hot magma associated with underwater volcanoes.

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Common land types include hot springs, fumaroles and geysers. Under the sea, hydrothermal vents may form features called black smokers.

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NASA: Ingredients for Life at Saturn’s Moon Enceladus

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NASA's Cassini spacecraft discovered hydrogen in the plume of gas and icy particles spraying from Saturn's moon Enceladus. The discovery means the small, icy moon - which has a global ocean under its surface - has a source of chemical energy that could be useful for microbes, if any exist there.

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In 1977, a group of marine researchers discovered something they'd only before theorized: cracks in the ocean floor releasing heat, warming up (and often boiling) the ocean around it. They also found mollusks in them, and subsequent vents have yielded heat resistant microbes, giant tube worms, and more fantastic creatures living in what are essentially small, underwater volcanoes.

Now, NASA has announced that they have indirect evidence for hydrothermal vents beyond Earth. In its encounters with Saturn's moon Enceladus, the Cassini craft found chemicals associated with these events. The results were published today in . It adds to the body of evidence that Enceladus could be ripe for life.

"Enceladus is too small to have retained the hydrogen from when it formed, so the hydrogen we see today is coming from inside Enceladus," Linda Spilker, project scientist on the Cassini mission, said in a press conference.

Enceladus, which is a tiny moon, took Cassini researchers by surprise when they discovered what seemed to be geysers of water emitting from the south pole in 2005. Subsequent investigations built a picture of the origin: liquid water under the surface of Enceladus, which led to the idea of an entire ocean under the surface. The heating mechanism, to date, has not been discovered.

The Ion Neutral Mass Spectrometer on the craft made the observation of molecular hydrogen in the ejecta from these geysers. According to principal investigator Hunter Waite of the Southwest Research Institute and his co-investigators, the source almost certainly has to be hydrothermal vents at Enceladus' sea floor. This means there's plenty of geological activity, increasing the chances for life.

Indeed, researchers published a paper last year suggesting that hydrothermal vents were the source of life on Earth, where chemical reactions fed these early microbes. If that's the case on Enceladus, the ocean may have microbial life at the very least.

"The hydrogen could be a potential source of chemical energy for any microbes living in Enceladus' ocean," Spilker says.

Of course, it may be years or even decades until we know for sure - in September, NASA will intentionally crash Cassini into Saturn to make sure it doesn't crash land into Titan or Enceladus and accidentally contaminate either potentially habitable moon with Earth bacteria.

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Enceladus' sea floor has hydrothermal vents like ours

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In 1977, a group of marine researchers discovered something they'd only before theorized: cracks in the ocean floor releasing heat, warming up (and often boiling) the ocean around it. They also found mollusks in them, and subsequent vents have yielded heat resistant microbes, giant tube worms, and more fantastic creatures living in what are essentially small, underwater volcanoes.

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As far as we can assume, based on our knowlodge of hydrothermal vents and NASA's researchers, Enceladus may be ripe for life.

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"The hydrogen could be a potential source of chemical energy for any microbes living in Enceladus' ocean," Spilker says.

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"The hydrogen could be a potential source of chemical energy for any microbes living in Enceladus' ocean," Spilker says.

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Until 1977, only two energy sources have been shown to power chemosynthetic symbioses: reduced sulfur compounds and methane. But after the discovery of hydrothermal vents and it's functionality, we show that the symbionts of the hydrothermal vent use hydrogen to power primary production.