Abstract

Enceladus is one of the moons of Saturn that has caught the attention of scientists due to the potential for harboring life. It has a stratified internal structure, below its ice shell has been detected an ocean layer which material is expelled through the jets from the plumes located in the south pole. The ice layer could limit the exchange of material between the ocean and the atmosphere. We present a model of the thermal atmospheric evolution with the presence of clouds, in order to understand, what would happen in the ice crust if the atmosphere has a small greenhouse effect. That change in the atmosphere was present during the Snowball period on Earth, where some molecules from the primitive ocean were liberated into the atmosphere. Those molecules probably are present in the ocean on Enceladus. We also present a comparative geochemical analysis of the molecules present in the ocean of Enceladus and the ones which were present in the ocean of Earth during the Snowball period in order to predict if Enceladus is in a primitive evolutionary stage and if these molecules could interact with the atmosphere if the ice crust has a destabilization.