The vicinity of Enceladus' south pole erupts geysers of water time and again. Observing it, the James Webb telescope discovered that the mist from them can be ejected a great distance into space. It is in this liquid that scientists hope to find signs of extraterrestrial life.
In the mid-2000s, when the Cassini probe began its work in the Saturn system, it discovered that its satellite Enceladus was spewing powerful geysers. They are thought to originate in an ocean of water that lurks beneath the satellite's thick, icy crust. Heated by tidal forces, this subsurface ocean is considered one of the most promising places to look for extraterrestrial life. Therefore, scientists look at its emissions with particular interest, finding in them nitrogen, methane and even traces of primitive organics.
New observations of Enceladus geysers were made by the James Webb Space Telescope. It showed that we still underestimated their power. The outburst recorded by the instrument was much larger than anything seen so far. Fast freezing, the ice particles were shot out to a distance many times the size of the satellite itself (which is just over 500 kilometers in diameter). This was reported at the symposium "Planetary Systems and the Origin of Life in the Era of the James Webb Telescope," which is taking place these days in Baltimore. A summary of the work is reported in Nature.
According to Sara Faggi (Sara Faggi) from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the observation was made on Nov. 9, 2022. James Webb was sent to Enceladus for only 4.5 minutes, but managed to register a geyser of record strength. Unfortunately, the scientists do not give many details, promising to describe them in a future article. But apparently the outburst appeared to be quite sparse, "resembling a cold haze rather than a geyser jet.
Theoretically, this makes it difficult to work out the chemical composition of the ejected liquid. Many substances of interest to scientists may be present in it in too small amounts to be conveniently observed in such a fog. However, Sarah Fagee noted that they still managed to find some very curious molecules that may tell about the geological (and possibly biological) activity on Enceladus.
Christopher Glen (Christopher Glein), who leads the group of scientists, added that the findings are promising enough to plan additional observations of the satellite today. Next time James Webb will spend much more time on Enceladus. This will also help in planning prospective space missions. Recall that one of the options is not aimed at landing on the surface of the satellite, but to fly through the emissions of its geysers in order to consider in detail their composition.
