Jan 5, 2022 01:12 AM
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/ence...ean-saturn
INTRO: Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus sprays water vapor into space. Scientists have thought that the plumes come from a deep subsurface ocean — but that might not be the case, new simulations suggest.
Instead, the water could come from pockets of watery mush in the moon’s icy shell, scientists report December 15 at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting. “Maybe we didn’t get the straw all the way through the ice shell to the ocean. Maybe we’re just getting this weird pocket,” says planetary scientist Jacob Buffo of Dartmouth College.
The finding is “a cautionary tale,” Buffo says. The hidden ocean makes Enceladus one of the best places to search for life in the solar system (SN: 4/8/20). Concepts for future missions to Enceladus rely on the idea that taking samples of the plumes would directly test the contents of the ocean, without needing to drill or melt through the ice. “That could be true,” Buffo says. But the simulations suggest “you could be sampling this slushy region in the middle of the shell, and that might not be the same chemistry as is down in the ocean.” (MORE - details)
INTRO: Saturn’s icy moon Enceladus sprays water vapor into space. Scientists have thought that the plumes come from a deep subsurface ocean — but that might not be the case, new simulations suggest.
Instead, the water could come from pockets of watery mush in the moon’s icy shell, scientists report December 15 at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting. “Maybe we didn’t get the straw all the way through the ice shell to the ocean. Maybe we’re just getting this weird pocket,” says planetary scientist Jacob Buffo of Dartmouth College.
The finding is “a cautionary tale,” Buffo says. The hidden ocean makes Enceladus one of the best places to search for life in the solar system (SN: 4/8/20). Concepts for future missions to Enceladus rely on the idea that taking samples of the plumes would directly test the contents of the ocean, without needing to drill or melt through the ice. “That could be true,” Buffo says. But the simulations suggest “you could be sampling this slushy region in the middle of the shell, and that might not be the same chemistry as is down in the ocean.” (MORE - details)