Saturn's Moon, Enceladus, Shoots Curtains of Water Vapor from Its Icy Ocean

It turns out that Saturn's moon, Enceladus, spews water from its surface, which could have important implications for whether or not the world once supported life. Scientists now know the pH of the water, which tells a bit more about the geologically active Enceladus.

Enceladus is thought to have an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy surface. This hidden body of water is the presumed source of the plume of water vapor and ice that the Cassini spacecraft spotted venting from the moon's south pole region.

In this latest study, the researchers developed a new chemical model based on mass spectrometry data of ice grains and gases in Enceladus' plume gathered by Cassini in order to determine the pH of Enceladus' ocean. This pH tells researchers how acidic or basic the water is, which is a fundamental parameter to understanding geochemical processes occurring inside the moon that are considered important in determining Enceladus' potential for acquiring and hosting life.

The new model reveals that the plume that Cassini spotted is salty with an alkaline pH of about 11 or 12, which is similar to that of glass-cleaning solutions of ammonia. It contains the same sodium chloride (NaCl) salt as our oceans here on Earth. In addition, its substantial sodium carbonate makes the ocean more similar to our planet's soda lakes, such as Mono Lake in California.

"Our results show that this kind of synergy between observations and modeling can tell us a great deal about the geochemical processes occurring on a faraway celestial object, thus opening the door to an exciting new era of chemical oceanography in the solar system and beyond," said Christopher Glein, one of the researchers, in a news release.

The findings are published in the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta.

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