The discovery has scientists excited about the possibility of alien life on icy Enceladus, one of Saturn's 100-plus moons.
said the 6,000-mile jet was the first water emission of this size to be detected and offered a direct look at how the moon, Enceladus, provides water to Saturn and its rings.
Image from the James Webb telescope of the enormous plume gushing from the icy moon. The inset shows an image of the moon taken by Cassini to illustrate its small size in comparison.It was detected using NASA'sand is being studied by a team led by Geronimo Villanueva, a planetary scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
"When I was looking at the data, at first, I was thinking I had to be wrong," said Villanueva in a statement."It was just so shocking to detect a water plume more than 20 times the size of [Enceladus]. The water plume extends far beyond its release region at the southern pole." Enceladus is an icy ocean moon, one of the 100-plus moons that circle Saturn. It is about as wide as Arizona and has the whitest, most reflective surface in our solar system because of its icy surface.
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