Today an article in the science journal Nature said that salty water is shooting out of Enceladus, one of Saturn's moons. And that the conditions for life to exist might lie beneath that moon's surface. But another article published alongside it argues that the water isn't salty.
Whether the water jets spewing from Enceladus's south pole are salty or not seems to be a big deal. But I don't understand why, do you? It has something to do with whether there could be an ocean under Enceladus' surface and perhaps extraterrestrial life in that ocean. Can anyone explain why the salt is so important?
Aside from the salt issue, it is confirmed true that (1) There are huge plumes of water vapor and ice crystals being ejected from Enceladus' south pole and (2) One of the outermost rings around Saturn (the E Ring) is composed of ice particles that come mostly from this these plumes emanating (vocabulary flash!) from this moon. That was discovered just a few years ago by NASA's Cassini spacecraft.
So this obscure little moon--just one-seventh the diameter or Earth's moon and just one of 61 (or more) moons circling Saturn--has been blowing smoke rings for millennia trying to stand out and get noticed...and has finally succeeded!
One commenter on Scientific American's website lists the moons of Saturn (Titan and Enceladus) and moons of Jupiter (Callisto, Ganymede and Europa) that are spots where space exploration has found evidence that extraterrestrial life might possibly exist. I'll have to research this to see how accurate that is.
Well salt is a key component of the biology of life. Electrolytes (from salt) provide the signaling that makes our bodies work. That information will show up in the biology section...
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