Enceladus: Watery Jets Near The South Pole Of The Moon

In a series of close flybys to Enceladus, the sixth-largest moon of Saturn, Cassini spacecraft has revealed watery jets erupting from what may be a vast underground sea.

These jets, which spew through cracks in the moon’s icy shell, could lead back to a habitable zone that is uniquely accessible in all the solar system.

“More than 90 jets of all sizes near Enceladus’s south pole are spraying water vapor, icy particles, and organic compounds all over the place,” says Carolyn Porco, an award-winning planetary scientist and leader of the Imaging Science team for NASA’s Cassini spacecraft.

“Cassini has flown several times now through this spray and has tasted it.

And we have found that aside from water and organic material, there is salt in the icy particles. The salinity is the same as that of Earth’s oceans.” Rest of article with all images here: