rhamphotheca: abcstarstuff: Cassini samples the...

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$rhamphotheca: abcstarstuff: Cassini samples the icy spray of Enceladus’ water plumes The NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens mission has directly sampled the water plumes jetting into space from Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The findings from these fly-throughs are the strongest evidence yet for the existence of large-scale saltwater reservoirs beneath the moon’s icy crust. Enceladus’ water plumes shoot water vapour and tiny grains of ice into space. They originate from the ‘tiger stripe’ surface fractures at the moon’s south pole, and create the faint E-ring, which traces the orbit of Enceladus around Saturn.The Cassini spacecraft discovered the plumes in 2005 and more recently has been able to fly directly through them… (read more: ABC Starstuff) (image: Credits: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)$

rhamphotheca:

abcstarstuff: Cassini samples the icy spray of Enceladus’ water plumes

The NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini-Huygens mission has directly sampled the water plumes jetting into space from Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The findings from these fly-throughs are the strongest evidence yet for the existence of large-scale saltwater reservoirs beneath the moon’s icy crust.

Enceladus’ water plumes shoot water vapour and tiny grains of ice into space. They originate from the ‘tiger stripe’ surface fractures at the moon’s south pole, and create the faint E-ring, which traces the orbit of Enceladus around Saturn.The Cassini spacecraft discovered the plumes in 2005 and more recently has been able to fly directly through them…

(read more: ABC Starstuff) (image: Credits: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)