Posted by Davin Flateau on 9 Mar 2006 at 12:09 pm.
Filed under Astronomy.
Update 1:23pm CST: From the offical press release from NASA:
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft may have found evidence of liquid water reservoirs that erupt in Yellowstone-like geysers on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The rare occurrence of liquid water so near the surface raises many new questions about the mysterious moon.
“We realize that this is a radical conclusion — that we may have evidence for liquid water within a body so small and so cold,” said Dr. Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader at Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. “However, if we are right, we have significantly broadened the diversity of solar system environments where we might possibly have conditions suitable for living organisms.”
“We previously knew of at most three places where active volcanism exists: Jupiter’s moon Io, Earth, and possibly Neptune’s moon Triton. Cassini changed all that, making Enceladus the latest member of this very exclusive club, and one of the most exciting places in the solar system,” said Dr. John Spencer, Cassini scientist, Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo.
“Other moons in the solar system have liquid-water oceans covered by kilometers of icy crust,” said Dr. Andrew Ingersoll, imaging team member and atmospheric scientist at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Calif. “What’s different here is that pockets of liquid water may be no more than tens of meters below the surface.”
Pretty exciting stuff! I’m sure planetary scientists and engineers are already whipping up their ideas for an Enceladus Lander Mission. Every mission NASA launches, whether it’s to Mars, Jupiter, or even far-flung Saturn, seems to completely rewrite the science books on the story of water in our solar system. It wasn’t long ago at all when we thought of the worlds in the outer solar system as frozen solid, incapable of generating or receiving enough energy from the sun to support good old aqueous H2O. But we’re seeing hard evidence now that just because a planet or moon is far from the sun, doesn’t mean it’s “dead.”
Update 11:35am CST: It appears that the announcement will come at 1pm CST as part of a Cassini mission update. We’ll post the announcement here when it comes.
Rumor is breaking across the internet right now that NASA will make a major announcement that liquid water has been found on Saturn’s Moon Enceladus.
This link has been posted to the story, but it looks like Orlando’s Channel 13’s website has crashed under the huge load.
Keep it here for the latest updates on this news. This post will stay updated.
This is huge because it would be the only confirmation of liquid water outside of the Earth. Liquid water has been suspected on Jupiter’s moon Europa, but never really confirmed.
Where there is water, there is the possibility of life.
The Cassini spacecraft now in orbit around Saturn has previously revealed jets of ice coming from the moon, as well as cracks in the ice, and refreezing “scars”, so some kind of tidal heating has been suspected on this icy cue ball orbiting the ringed giant.
LadyGunn on 12 Mar 2006 at 6:13 pm: 1
This post is in this week’s KS blogger roundup at ladygunn.blogspot.com/2006/03/kansas-blogger-round-up.html
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