The ice blasting from Saturn's moon Enceladus is stranger than scientists realized

Enceladus may naturally separate and concentrate chemicals from its hidden ocean as droplets slowly freeze and shatter on their way into space. The process could explain Cassini’s puzzling ice-grain chemistry while giving future spacecraft a powerful advantage in searching for organic compounds and clues to life. The ice blasting from Saturn’s moon Enceladus is stranger than scientists realized.

The ice blasting from Saturn’s moon Enceladus is stranger than scientists realized Science News from research organizations The ice blasting from Saturn’s moon Enceladus is stranger than scientists realized Enceladus may be naturally sorting and concentrating chemicals from its hidden ocean, potentially making the search for signs of life much easier. The tiger stripes are four prominent fractures, each about 84 miles (135 kilometers) long, that cross the moon’s south polar terrain. Near the moon’s south pole, fractures in the crust release water vapor and ice particles into space.

Those particles give scientists an unusual way to study an alien ocean without having to drill through kilometers of ice. An international team that includes researchers from the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at the Institute of Science Tokyo has now investigated what happens to that ocean water as it moves from beneath the surface and eventually becomes the tiny ice grains detected in space. Cassini Found Surprisingly Diverse Ice Grains Between 2004 and 2017, the Cosmic Dust Analyzer on NASA’s Cassini spacecraft measured the composition of individual ice particles in Saturn’s E-ring.

That ring is continually supplied with material erupting from Enceladus.