NASA's Cassini Discovers Potential Liquid Water on Enceladus

This image from the Cassini-Huygens Multimedia Collection, JPL/NASA, may show evidence of liquid water on Saturn's moon Enceladus. This is, of course, a major discovery, since scientists have always been able to find life wherever liquid water exists (on Earth, anyway).

NASA's Cassini spacecraft may have found evidence of liquid water reservoirs that erupt in Yellowstone-like geysers on Saturn's moon Enceladus. The rare occurrence of liquid water so near the surface raises many new questions about the mysterious moon.

"We realize that this is a radical conclusion -- that we may have evidence for liquid water within a body so small and so cold," said Dr. Carolyn Porco, Cassini imaging team leader at Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. "However, if we are right, we have significantly broadened the diversity of solar system environments where we might possibly have conditions suitable for living organisms."