When Cassini Fell in Love with Enceladus, so did I by Marilyn Barr

 When I decided to write a yeti romance for the Monster Brides series, I didn’t want to link the Snuggling Under Snowdrifts earth-based snow monsters to the multi-author series. However, I can’t resist the lure of writing about fuzzy yet fearsome snow monsters. This standalone yeti romance needed a new home, far away from the Artic Circle of Earth. Perhaps on another planet… The professional extraterrestrial hunters within NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) would agree that Enceladus is most likely to house life—outside of Earth of course.

The Cassini spacecraft was launched in 1997 to study Saturn. It took a detour when scientists got a closer look at Enceladus. Formerly thought to be a rounded chunk of ice, scientists saw geyser bursts of water ejected from Enceladus to join Saturn’s E ring. A closer look revealed Enceladus has no true landforms except ‘tiger stripe’ vents. The discharges from the ‘tiger stripes’ contain all the chemicals required for life—water, highly concentrated oxygen, amino acids, and phosphorus. Unfortunately, Cassini wasn’t equipped to take samples or study the moon more closely. The mission was to photograph Saturn to understand its rings. No one was expecting to find a candidate for extraterrestrial existence! In 2017, Cassini crashed into Enceladus when it ran out of fuel…and fueled a million questions in the researchers.

(Cassini Stats from Nasa. gov)

With untapped potential and room for creative license, I couldn’t resist writing a yeti romance on the icy moon of Enceladus!

    Evidence of oxygen-rich air and methane pockets suggests life is possible without spacesuits. This is why humans can bundle up in furs rather than wear spacesuits and air tanks. Even though they would have the ability to exchange gases (breathe and digest material), there isn’t a stable atmosphere like on Earth. There are no clouds or weather. The snow comes from geysers which erupt the pressurized water found beneath the surface. Alien yeti Pabu’s hot spring would flow upward in reality, from the bathing pool to the bedroom because of the forces within the moon—not as a waterfall rushing downward.

(NASA graphic report originally by NPR)

The main gravitation body for Enceladus is Saturn (not the much larger sun), so there is less gravity than on Earth. While the people in this story use Earthling names for the native animals they resemble, all the alien animals would have longer limbs, necks, and spines. The goats could carry more mass with less musculature because of the lower gravity. Ku Huang and her kids are inspired by adorable Changthangi goats (from the same area of Earth as the original yeti legend.)

(Image from Guidefarming of India 10 best breeds)

Could we grow plants on Enceladus? So far, the evidence points to “no” because of the liquid water under the crust instead of a rocky mantle to recycle soil. The lack of weather, freezing temperatures, and Saturn’s light as a subpar source of ultraviolet rays also would inhibit plant growth. That’s where I used my artistic license to put Earthly cold-weather crops (I used to homestead in Ohio, so I love cold-weather crops) on Enceladus.

Image from Southwest Research Institute. org

When Jaya returns to Alpha “months” have passed but they had time to grow plants from seeds at low temperatures. How is this? The “day” on Enceladus is measured by the moon’s 32-Earth-hour-long rotation. A “month” is measured by its revolution around Saturn. On Earth, our moon revolves around us to create months, but Enceladus is the opposite with a much longer orbit.

Betrothed to the Yeti takes the Cinderella tale out of this world. The year is 2700 AD and humans colonized the icy moon a few generations ago. Jaya, our heroine, was born and raised in the colony of Alpha. They lost communication with Earth in the first generation of settlers and the four abandoned villages have developed into unrelated entities. What happens when Earthlings are given a chance to start over on Enceladus? They create new folklore, religious practices, and societal structures. Visit the monthly wedding ceremony of the villages in Betrothed to the Yeti, releasing on 10/15/2023, as part of the Monster Brides book series.