Newly released Enceladus images taken by the Cassini mission have revealed much about one of Saturn’s moons, which have led people to believe it might host life.
NASA just released photos of Saturn’s Enceladus that were captured by the Cassini spacecraft back in November, 2016. The images have revealed a lot we did not know about the icy rock floating around the second-largest planet in our solar system.
Scientists always saw the moon as icy, cold and uninhabitable, but a closer look has changed that.
One of the images released by NASA on March 6 of this year, comes with an image description saying that “over the course of the Cassini mission, observations have shown that Enceladus (313 miles or 504 kilometers across) not only has watery jets sending icy grains into space; under its icy crust it also has a global ocean, and may have hydrothermal activity as well”.
This means that not only does Enceladus have water on its surface, something scientists believed to be impossible a few years back but recently have found pretty much everywhere, but the moon has a global ocean.
Another discovery that is pointed out, is that the moon might also have a hot core, which means it is moderately temperate on its surface, and that makes parts of it supporting of life.
The Cassini mission first set out to collect data from around the Milky Way in 1997, a mission that will end this year after 20 years in service.
