Ingredients could provide environment for life precursors
This false color Cassini image illustrates the jets of fine icy particles erupting from the south polar region of Enceladus (Cassini Imaging Team and NASA/JPL/SSI). Related photosAstronomers have found the strongest evidence yet for an ocean beneath the icy shell of Saturn's Enceladus, suggesting it could join the exclusive club of watery moons in our solar system. The salty water is likely feeding jets of water-ice that spurt from the moon's south polar region. Such plumes were first reported in 2005, and ever since, astronomers have suspected a liquid ocean might lie beneath the icy shell of Saturn's sixth largest moon. The new finding, published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, could bump this diminutive world — measuring 310 miles (500 km) in diameter (about the width of Arizona) — into a class that includes Jupiter's Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. More>>
