Tag : Plume

New York: A water vapour plume from Saturn's moon Enceladus spanning more than 6,000 miles has been detected by researchers using the world's premier space science observatory James Webb Space Telescope. Using the data from scientists can also, for the first time, take a direct look at how this emission feeds the water supply for the entire system of Saturn and its rings. Enceladus, an ocean world about 4 per cent the size of Earth, just 313 miles across, is one of the most exciting scientific targets in our solar system in the search for life beyond Earth. Sandwiched between the moon's icy outer crust and its rocky core is a global reservoir of salty water. Geyser-like volcanoes spew jets of ice particles, water vapour, and organic chemicals out of crevices in the moon's surface informally called 'tiger stripes'. "When I was looking at the data, at first, I was thinking I had to be wrong. It was just so shocking to detect a water plume more than 20 times the size of the moon," lead author Geronimo Villanueva from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement. "The water plume extends far beyond its release region at the southern pole." In addition to the length of the plume, the team found that the water vapour is gushing out, about 79 gallons per second, which can fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool in just a couple of hours. "The orbit of Enceladus around Saturn is relatively quick, just 33 hours. As it whips around Saturn, the moon and its jets are basically spitting off water, leaving a halo, almost like a donut, in its wake. In the Webb observations, not only was the plume huge, but there was just water absolutely everywhere," said Villanueva. This fuzzy donut of water that appeared 'everywhere', ...