SCIENCE IN THE NEWS DAILY

Cassini to Search for Source of Saturn Moon's Plumes

from New Scientist

On Monday, the Cassini spacecraft will return to Saturn's icy moon Enceladus, passing within 50 kilometres of its south pole. NASA team members hope the flyby will provide evidence for subsurface liquid water containing the building blocks of life.

Previous encounters revealed huge plumes of ice and water vapour venting from blue-green fault lines, or "tiger stripes", that criss-cross the south pole. The source of these jets, which feed Saturn's rings, is hotly contested.

Gathering data about these features has been slow because only a few instruments can be used fully during each flyby. Early budget cuts to the mission in 1992 limited the ability of its detectors to move independently, so some are often on the wrong side of the spacecraft to be useful.