On March 9th, NASA announced that the Cassini spacecraft had spotted geysers of ice and water vapor shooting from the surface of Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons. This discovery may be evidence that resevoirs of liquid water can be found slightly below the moon's surface. If true, Enceladus would be the environment most conducive to life found in our solar system. NASA's news release can be found here.
Left: The emissions from Enceladus are located at the south pole of the moon near its "tiger stripe" fissures.
Image: Courtasy of NASA
Here the emissions can be seen in monochrome and color. You can see in the color image that the fountains extend more than 267 miles above the moon's surface. This is almost as tall as the moon itself.
Image: Courtasy of NASA
A closeup of the fissures near the geysers. Enceladus is only about 300 miles across, making it comparable in size to England or the state of Arizona.
Image: Courtasy of NASA
This illustration depicts how the Cassini spacecraft detected Enceladus' atmosphere with its magnetometer. As Cassini passed the moon, the magnetic field from Saturn and its other moons bent around Enceladus' atmosphere.
Image: Courtasy of NASA
This diagram shows the possible operations at work beneath the moon's surface. The most probable explanation for the jets of ice and methane is that there's a heat source not far beneath Enceladus' surface, one that is hot enough to produce liquid water.
Image: Courtasy of NASA
This undated handout shows the space probe Cassini/Huygens in Cape Caneveral, Fla. The European Huygens, center in gold, and the US Cassini probe duo will be launched on Monday, Oct. 13, 1997 from Cape Canaveral by a Titan rocket and is planned to reach the planet Saturn by 2004. NASA s biggest, costliest interplanetary explorer holds a tiny, cheap gadget that could end up being Cassini s coup: a microphone with which to hear the sounds of another world. The Cassini space probe before its 1997 launch. The gold center is the Huygens probe, which successfully separated from Cassini and landed on Titan in 2004.
Image: AP Photo/Handout
A graphical representation of Cassini's current position in relation to Saturn.
Image: Courtasy of NASA
Charles Elachi, Director of JPL, left, Ed Weiler, Associate Administrator at NASA Headquarters, Bob Mitchell, Cassini Program Manager, Julie Webster, Flight Director and Jeremy Jones Navigation Team Chief, answer questions at a news conference after the Cassini spacecraft successfully inserted into the orbit of Saturn at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., Wednesday, June 30, 2004. The Cassini spacecraft slipped between Saturn's rings and started its orbit of the planet, seven years and 2.2 billion miles after it began its journey. Charles Elachi, director of Jet Propulsion Laboratory, left; Ed Weiler, associate administrator at NASA headquarters; Bob Mitchell, Cassini program manager; Julie Webster, flight director; and Jeremy Jones, navigation team chief, answer questions at a news conference after the Cassini spacecraft successfully inserted into Saturn's orbit.
Image: AP photo/Chris Carlson
The south pole of Enceladus is, in some places, 20 degrees hotter than its surrounding areas.
Image: Courtasy of NASA
This view was created by combining images taken using ultraviolet, green and infrared spectral filters. It was then processed to accentuate subtle color differences. The change in color across the surface could indicate a broad spectrum of compositional elements in the moon's outer layer.
Image: Courtasy of NASA
