Enceladus's 101 Geysers Blast From Hidden Ocean 39
astroengine writes: New observations from NASA's Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft have revealed at least 101 individual geysers erupting from Enceladus' crust and, through careful analysis, planetary scientists have uncovered their origin. From the cracked ice in this region, fissures blast out water vapor mixed with organic compounds as huge geysers. Associated with these geysers are surface "hotspots" but until now there has been some ambiguity as to whether the hotspots are creating the geysers or whether the geysers are creating the hotspots. "Once we had these results in hand, we knew right away heat was not causing the geysers, but vice versa," said Carolyn Porco, leader of the Cassini imaging team from the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colo., and lead author of one of the research papers. "It also told us the geysers are not a near-surface phenomenon, but have much deeper roots." And those roots point to a large subsurface source of liquid water — adding Enceladus as one of the few tantalizing destinations for future astrobiology missions.
Re:Astrobiology (Score:1, Interesting)
The thing about alien life is that it is ALIEN. It may not conform to someone's narrow view of what life is. You could be looking right at it and not recognize it. Understandably we look for what we consider life because we know no other. I have to laugh at all the vegetarians because they are killing living things and eating them, but think meat eaters are the bad guys. Just because it doesn't have a face doesn't mean it is not alive.