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Images from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam show a water vapour plume jetting from the south pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, extending out 40 times the size of the moon itself. The inset, an image from the Cassini orbiter, emphasises how small Enceladus appears in the JWST image compared to the water plume. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, G. Villanueva , A. Pagan .
Enceladus itself is just 505 km across, meaning the plume is 40 times as big. We’ve known about the water plumes – which are fueled by a massive subsurface ocean — since shortly after Cassini began studying Enceladus in 2005. For such a tiny moon, Enceladus is incredibly intriguing. Its distance from the Sun means the moon should be a giant ice ball, but instead it is one of the most hydrothermally active places in our Solar System. Under its icy crust lies a global ocean of salty water and volcano-like jets spew water vapor from just under the moon’s surface. Tidal heating from Saturn and other moons likely create an internal environment warm enough to host liquid water.
They searched for CO2, CO, CH4, C2H6 and CH3OH molecular emissions across the plume, but none were detected – just water vapor. However, the researchers were also able to observe directly how the moon’s water vapor plumes feeds the water supply for the entire system of Saturn and its rings. A donut-shaped torus of water is located within Saturn’s E-ring.
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