Discovery of Salt on Saturn’s Moon Enceladus
Posted on 09. Jul, 2009 by flyingeraser in Saturn
European scientists on the joint NASA/ESA Cassini mission have detected, for the first time, sodium salts in ice grains of Saturns E-ring, which is primarily replenished by material from the plumes of water vapour and ice grains emitted by Saturns moon Enceladus. The detection of salty ice indicates that the little moon harbours a reservoir of liquid water, perhaps even an ocean, beneath its surface.
Cassini discovered the water-ice plumes on Enceladus in 2005. These plumes, emitted from fractures near its south pole, expel tiny ice grains and vapour, some of which escape the moons gravity, replenishing Saturns outermost ring, the E-ring.
Cassinis Cosmic Dust Analyzer, led by Principal Investigator Ralf Srama, of the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany, has examined the composition of these grains and found sodium salt (or table salt) within them.
We believe that the salty material deep inside Enceladus washed out from rock at the bottom of a liquid layer, said Frank Postberg, Cassini scientist on the Cosmic Dust Analyzer at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, Germany.