09-March-2006, 10:33 PM
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Senior Member
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Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 11,626
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The Planetary Society Weblog: Possible liquid water on Enceladus
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There's been a lot of buzz on the Internet this morning with all kinds of crazy claims about NASA discovering life or something, which are not true. What is true just came out in a press release from JPL titled "NASA discovers potential liquid water on Enceladus." There is not a lot of detail in the release that sounds much different from previous news about the active geysers that have been seen on Enceladus with many of Cassini's instruments. However, the release is happening today because today's issue of Science magazine, which should be out in an hour or so, will contain many special reports on Enceladus, the first peer-reviewed publications to appear since the Enceladus-is-active discovery was clinched in July, and I'm sure there will be lots of new and exciting things to read there.
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CICLOPS, Cassini Imaging: Captain's Log, Carolyn Porco
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Our detailed analyses of these images have led us to a remarkable conclusion, documented in a paper to be published in the journal SCIENCE tomorrow, that the jets are erupting from pockets of liquid water, possibly as close to the surface as ten meters ... a surprising circumstance for a body so small and cold. Other Cassini instruments have found that the fractures on the surface and the plume itself contain simple organic materials, and that there is more heat on average emerging from the south polar terrain, per square meter, than from the Earth.
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A great deal more analysis and further exploration with Cassini must ensue before this implication becomes anything more than a suggestion. But at the moment, the prospects are staggering. Enceladus may have just taken center stage as the body in our solar system, outside the Earth, having the most easily accessible bodies of organic-rich water and, hence, significant biological potential.
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