Cold water geysers on Saturn’s moons
14 March 2006
by Carina Lee
| NASA’s Cassini spacecraft exploration may have prompted researchers to believe that there may be liquid water reservoirs that erupt in geysers on Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons. Dr. Carolyn Porco is the team leader at the Space Science Institute, and she explains “We realize that this is a radical conclusion that we may have evidence for liquid water within a body so small and so cold. However, if we are right, we have significantly broadened the diversity of solar system environments where we might possibly have conditions suitable for living organisms.” Because Enceladus reflects almost all the light that it receives from the Sun, its surface is extremely cold. Scientists have speculated that this may be an indication that the jets are erupting from near-surface pockets of liquid water at above 0 degrees Celsius. When the Cassini spacecraft approached Saturn, it was found that the atmosphere became filled with many oxygen atoms. The reason for this remained unexplained until this recent property of Enceladus was discovered.
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image: JPL/NASA |
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