"In the Webb observations, not only was the plume huge, but there was just water absolutely everywhere." As it whips around Saturn, the moon and its jets are basically spitting off water, leaving a halo, almost like a donut, in its wake," remarks Geronimo Villanueva, lead author of the study. "The orbit of Enceladus around Saturn is relatively quick, just 33 hours. The water plume extends far beyond its release region at the southern pole," said lead author Geronimo Villanueva of NASA. It was just so shocking to detect a water plume more than 20 times the size of the moon. "When I was looking at the data, at first, I was thinking I had to be wrong. Enceladus sports vast underground oceans containing key ingredients for life-bearing, hidden under layers of surface ice.īut recently, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) spotted a water vapour plume bursting out of Enceladus spanning more than 9,600 kilometres - that’s nearly 40 times larger than this moon’s mean radius of 252 km! - leaving scientists understandably puzzled. The Saturn moon has been the subject of many astronomy coffee tables because it is a very likely candidate for supporting life. This week, Enceladus - Saturn’s tiny moon spanning a measly 500 kilometres in diameter - has stolen the spotlight once again for its pimple-popping-esque shenanigans. It's always exciting when celestial bodies end up acting weird.
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