March 9, 2006: NASA’s Cassini spacecraft may have found evidence of liquid water reservoirs that erupt in Yellowstone-like geysers on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The rare occurrence of liquid water so near the surface raises many new questions about this mysterious moon.
“Other moons in the solar system may have liquid-water oceans covered by kilometers of icy crust,” said Andrew Ingersoll, imaging team member and atmospheric scientist at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. “What’s different here is that pockets of liquid water may be no more than tens of meters below the surface.”
“As Cassini approached Saturn, we discovered the Saturnian system is filled with oxygen atoms. At the time we had no idea where the oxygen was coming from,” said Candy Hansen, Cassini scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena. “Now we know Enceladus is spewing out water molecules, which break down into oxygen and hydrogen.”
Above: Cassini’s infrared spectrometer took the temperature of a tiger stripe. The fissure is at least 15 degrees K warmer than its surroundings–a sign of geothermal activity.
Scientists still have many questions. Why is Enceladus so active? Might this activity have been continuous enough over the moon’s history for life to have had a chance to take hold in the moon’s interior? In the spring of 2008, scientists will get another chance to look at the geysers–and another crack at answering these questions–when Cassini flies within 350 kilometers (approximately 220 miles) of Enceladus.
Source: Radical! Liquid Water on Enceladus
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