Saturn’s moon Enceladus is a strange place.
The cold, tiny moon in the far reaches of the solar system is an unlikely location for liquid water. Yet scientists have not only discovered that Enceladus contains water, it actually shoots magnificent plumes of it out into space.
These plumes and their origin remain a major mystery for researchers studying the moon and its environment. Where is the source of their liquid water and what causes them to fire out into space?
Here, Wired takes a closer look at the plumes in some of our favorite images of our favorite Saturnian moon.
New evidence from the Cassini mission, currently in orbit around the ringed planet, suggests an unexpected property for the plumes: They are the source of a complex form of plasma around Saturn.
Plasma – a state of matter similar to a gas made partially of ionized particles – is the most common form of matter in the universe. Dusty plasmas, like those recently observed around Saturn, have small nano-sized particles suspended in them, producing completely different behavior from ordinary plasmas.
The water being ejected from Enceladus’ plumes is apparently forming this dusky plasma when it hits Saturn’s magnetic field. Researchers are eager to study the material since they rarely have an opportunity to see it up close in interplanetary space.
The results appear in two papers in this month's Journal of Geophysical Research Space Physics.
NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute