Not exact matches
Researchers have been fascinated with Enceladus since July 2005, when Cassini revealed plumes of
ice particles and water vapour
shooting out from the moon's south pole.
It also would be far easier to get a water sample from Enceladus, which has plumes of water vapor,
ice and
particles shooting more than 300 miles off its surface, than from other moons, such as Jupiter's Europa, where a massive ocean is believed to be buried beneath a thick icy crust.
As this water moves through rocks, it dissolves salt compounds and pushes through fractures in the overlying
ice to form reservoirs closer the moon's surface, where it is expelled into space when the outermost layer of the crust cracks open and the resulting depressurization of these reservoirs causes water vapor and
ice particles to
shoot out in the observed plumes.