Ice Volcanoes Seen On Saturnian Moon
[Discover, January 2007]

By RICHARD MORGAN

Saturn's small moon Enceladus—just 300 miles wide—turned in one of the biggest discoveries from NASA's Cassini probe, now orbiting the ringed planet. Data published in March showed a geyser on Enceladus shooting jets of water and fine icy particles hundreds of miles into space. The jets also contained simple carbon compounds. These findings suggest that liquid water may lurk beneath the moon's surface, adding Enceladus to the list of alien locations that could harbor organic chemistry, if not actual life.

Carolyn Porco, head of the Cassini imaging team at the Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations in Boulder, Colorado, has determined that ice from Enceladus's plume swirls around Saturn to form one of the planet's signature rings. Nobody knows why Enceladus is so active; the leading theory is that the stretching force of Saturn's gravity has heated the moon's interior more efficiently than expected.

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