The data obtained by the Cassini probe, which has been studying Saturn and some of its moons since 2004, has allowed a team of researchers to identify 101 active geysers in one of them, known as Enceladus.
Scientists from the joint Cassini-Huygens mission, between NASA and the European Space Agency, sighted in 2005 the first of these natural jets , which launch immense jets made of ice particles and water vapor into space.
The new findings , which have been published in the Astronomical Journal, confirm the hypothesis that the ejections originate in a subterranean ocean that would be 30 to 40 kilometers below the ice cap that covers the surface.
Carolyn Porco, from the Institute of Space Science, in Boulder (Colorado), who has coordinated the study, highlights that narrow conduits would connect this mass of liquid water with a region of the satellite located at the south pole , in which four striking fractures known as tiger stripes.
Precisely, in previous tests it had been suggested that the friction between these structures originated the emissions, a possibility that is now practically ruled out. As has been known, the latter, in addition, change their brightness periodically, as Enceladus orbits Saturn.
Photo: NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI
