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Webb Spots Large Plume of Water from Saturn’s Moon Enceladus
In a blog post on May 30th, NASA announced that the James Webb Space Telescope had discovered a large plume of water coming from Saturn’s sixth largest moon, Enceladus. This moon is one of the most reflective bodies in the solar system thanks to its clean, icy surface, which has long been known to contain a liquid ocean underneath.
While Enceladus is far from the only icy moon with a liquid ocean, it has been of special interest due to the fact that it sprays particles of its ocean into space where they can be detected by spacecraft and telescopes. In fact, the Cassini spacecraft was the first to discover icy water particles gushing from the moons surface during its flyby of Saturn in 2005. These water particles leave Enceladus’ surface at a high speed of around 800 miles per hour.
These water streams come from fractures in Enceladus’ crust, which are warmer than other parts of its surface. In addition to water vapor, these jets of material also contain gases such as methane, carbon dioxide, and possibly a small amount of ammonia and either carbon monoxide or nitrogen. Salts and silica can also be found in the plumes.
Since the eruptions of water and ice from Enceladus are continuous, an enormous halo of ice dust has formed around the moon. Not only that, but this dust supplies a small…
