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Planetary science

Enceladus with a grain of salt

Nature volume 459, pages 1067–1068 (2009)Cite this article

The observation that water plumes erupt from cracks on Saturn's moon Enceladus has fired speculation about a possible subsurface ocean. The latest searches for sodium salts point to the existence of such an ocean.

Do the spectacular plumes of water vapour and ice particles seen on Saturn's icy moon Enceladus come from liquid water just below its frigid surface? That is the fascinating question addressed by Postberg et al.1 (page 1098 of this issue) using data from the Saturn-orbiting Cassini spacecraft, and by Schneider et al.2 (page 1102) using ground-based telescopes. Despite their very different techniques, the two teams use the same key element, sodium, in their search for Enceladan water.

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Figure 1: Streaming into space.

NASA/JPL-CALTECH

References

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  1. John Spencer is at the Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado 80302, USA. spencer@boulder.swri.edu ,

    John Spencer

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Spencer, J. Enceladus with a grain of salt. Nature 459, 1067–1068 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/4591067a

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