JPL: Liquid sighted on Saturn moon

Images and data from one of Saturn’s moons sent this week to scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory indicate the possibility of a liquid ocean beneath the surface of Enceladus, which may contain the conditions necessary for life.

Information was gathered in a flyby Nov. 2 as part of the Cassini mission to Saturn, currently in its fifth year, in which NASA hopes to learn more about the exact composition of bodies existing within the planet’s rings.

During this seventh flyby of Enceladus, the spacecraft called E-7 concentrated its sonar and photographic efforts on a liquid plume emitted through fissures at the moon’s south pole, according to Bonnie Buratti, a JPL astronomer who’s worked on the project since the craft’s 1997 launch.

Though the craft has come closer to the surface in past flybys, this is the first time it’s been sent directly into the plume itself, which was discovered in 2005, Buratti said.

“This is where water, frozen, is coming out from a liquid ocean underneath, causing these huge geysers,” Buratti said, adding that the plume may reach heights of about 125 to 250 miles.

NASA reported on its website Tuesday that the Cassini spacecraft had weathered the flyby well and was sending images and data from its travels back to Earth for analysis.

“Previous flybys detected water vapor, sodium and organic molecules, but scientists need to know more about the plume’s composition and density to characterize the source, possibly a liquid ocean under the moon’s icy surface,” according to a NASA statement.

Scientists have located several areas in the universe where the conditions necessary for the most basic forms of life are thought to exist. But Saturn’s moons, and the levels of sodium being found in their cosmic liquids, give scientists hope that such conditions may exist within our own solar system.

If so, changes on Titan and Enceladus would serve as snapshots back into Earth’s own distant past, Buratti said.

“We would get a view of what our planet might have looked like in the past,” she said.

Enceladus, and its larger counterpart, Titan, may hold keys to the primitive nature of beginnings of life on Earth. Data recovered from the spacecraft’s speedy swoop into a cloudy plume emitted by fissures on the moon’s south pole are still being analyzed for nitrogen and sodium levels, Buratti said.

“If we have liquid water or a source of heat and organic molecules, it has all the conditions in which life arose on Earth,” she added.

Researchers on the project, initially scheduled to last seven years, are seeking an extension that would allow them to observe the Saturnian system through at least half of the planet’s rotational year, equivalent to more than 29 Earth years, to further study Titan’s surface.