* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

RE: Enceladus

Blobrana · L

Jets on Saturn's moon Enceladus not geysers from underground ocean, says study
Water vapour jets that spew from the surface of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus are not really geysers from an underground ocean as initially envisioned by planetary scientists, according to a study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder.
First observed following a close flyby by NASA's Cassini spacecraft in July 2005, the jets were found to consist of both water vapour and icy particles, said Professor Nicholas Schneider of CU-Boulder's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics. The jets inspired speculation by planetary scientists that they were geysers -- violent explosions of water out of a vent caused by expanding bubbles of water vapour emanating from an ocean beneath the icy crust of Enceladus.

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Blobrana · L

Sodium traces hint at subsurface ocean on Enceladus
The water plumes erupting from the south pole of Saturn's moon Enceladus could be caused by a liquid ocean lurking many kilometres underground rather than by geysers erupting from a salty ocean just beneath the moon's surface - as early theories suggested.
Evidence that Enceladus could hold a subsurface ocean would be exciting because liquid water elsewhere in our solar system is the most promising place to look for signs of life.

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Blobrana · L

European scientists on the joint NASA/ESA Cassini mission have detected, for the first time, sodium salts in ice grains of Saturns E-ring, which is primarily replenished by material from the plumes of water vapour and ice grains emitted by Saturns moon Enceladus. The detection of salty ice indicates that the little moon harbours a reservoir of liquid water, perhaps even an ocean, beneath its surface.
Cassini discovered the water-ice plumes on Enceladus in 2005. These plumes, emitted from fractures near its south pole, expel tiny ice grains and vapour, some of which escape the moons gravity, replenishing Saturns outermost ring, the E-ring.

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Blobrana · L

Nasa's Cassini spacecraft has obtained strong evidence that Saturn's tiny moon Enceladus retains liquid water.
The probe has detected sodium salts in the vicinity of the satellite, which appear to spew from its south pole.
Liquid water that is in prolonged contact with rock will leach out sodium - in exactly the same way as Earth's oceans have become salty over time.

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Scientists say caverns of salty water lie beneath the frozen surface of the planet's sixth biggest moon
Alien life could have evolved in underground seas on one of Saturn's moons, scientists say.
They have unearthed new evidence that caverns of salty water lie beneath the frozen surface of Enceladus - the ringed planet's sixth biggest moon.
The revelation follows the discovery of a giant plume of salt water and ice, spurting hundreds of miles into space from the satellite.

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Blobrana · L

Huge geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus may be fed by a salty sea below its surface, boosting the odds of extraterrestrial life in our own solar system, a study released yesterday showed.
Researchers in Europe detected salt particles in the volcanic vapour-and-ice jets that shoot hundreds of kilometres into space, the strongest evidence to date of a liquid ocean under the moon's icy crust.

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If there is life on Saturn's bizarre, water-spewing moon Enceladus, it's about to spend a lot of time in the freezer.
So concludes Norman Sleep of Stanford University, who says a perpetual cycle of melting and refreezing may offer the best explanation for why Enceladus seems so active today. In Sleep's scenario, Enceladus is now heading back into a long cold phase after a comparatively brief warm spell.

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Blobrana · L

The ice plumes that bloom above Saturn's icy moon Enceladus are almost certainly rooted in a subsurface sea of liquid water.
The Cassini spacecraft flew through a plume on 9 October 2008 and measured the molecular weight of chemicals in the ice. Frank Postberg of the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany, and colleagues, found traces of sodium in the form of salt and sodium bicarbonate. The chemicals would have originated in the rocky core of Enceladus, so to reach a plume they must have leached from the core via liquid water.

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Blobrana · L

Dr Geraint Jones and Dr Chris Arridge from the UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) have discovered tiny, electrically-charged icy particles in the plume from Saturns moon Enceladus, offering a glimpse of the interior of the celestial body.
Dr Jones and Dr Arridge presented their results on behalf of the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) instrument team today at the European Week of Astronomy and Space Science (EWASS) conference at the University of Hertfordshire.

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