Saturn Moon Has Water Geysers and, Just Maybe, Life
Elizabeth Svoboda
National Geographic
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Startling new images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft indicate that Enceladus may contain pockets of liquid water below its icy crust.
These pockets, described in an article published today in the journal Science, may be ideal habitats for life-forms similar to those found in hydrothermal vents beneath the Earth's oceans.
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See Also:
NASA mission leads to a watery rave
Do geysers mean life on Saturn moon?
Why Do We Think Aliens Are Made of Water?
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"This is extraordinary," said Carolyn Porco, a Cassini team leader at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado and primary author of the new study.
Launched in 1997, the Cassini orbiter has conducted numerous flybys of Saturn's frigid moons. What causes these geysers to form? According to Porco and her colleagues, unknown heat sources inside Enceladus melt ice into deposits of subsurface water. Under pressure, these water pockets burst through the icy crust in fountainlike jets.
Mar 10, 2006
Elizabeth Svoboda
National Geographic
______________
Startling new images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft indicate that Enceladus may contain pockets of liquid water below its icy crust.
These pockets, described in an article published today in the journal Science, may be ideal habitats for life-forms similar to those found in hydrothermal vents beneath the Earth's oceans.
_______________
See Also:
NASA mission leads to a watery rave
Do geysers mean life on Saturn moon?
Why Do We Think Aliens Are Made of Water?
________________
"This is extraordinary," said Carolyn Porco, a Cassini team leader at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado and primary author of the new study.
Launched in 1997, the Cassini orbiter has conducted numerous flybys of Saturn's frigid moons. What causes these geysers to form? According to Porco and her colleagues, unknown heat sources inside Enceladus melt ice into deposits of subsurface water. Under pressure, these water pockets burst through the icy crust in fountainlike jets.
Mar 10, 2006
