"The Cassini spacecraft first spotted the plume on its exploration of the giant ringed planet in 2005. Enceladus ejects water vapor, gas and tiny grains of
ice into space hundreds of kilometers above the moon’s surface.
The moon, which orbits in Saturn’s outermost “E” ring, is one of only
three outer solar system bodies that produce active eruptions of dust
and vapor. Moreover, aside from the Earth, Mars, and Jupiter’s moon
Europa, it is one of the only places in the solar system for which
astronomers have direct evidence of the presence of water.
The European researchers, led by Frank Postberg of the University of Heidelberg in Germany, are reporting the detection of sodium salts among the dust ejected in the Enceladus plume. Postberg and colleagues have studied data from the Cosmic Dust Analyzer (CDA) onboard the Cassini
spacecraft and have combined the data with laboratory experiments.
They say the icy grains in the Enceladus plume contain
substantial quantities of sodium salts, hinting at the salty ocean
deep below.
The results of their study imply that the concentration of sodium chloride in the ocean can be as high as that of Earth’s oceans and is about 0.1-0.3 moles of salt per kilogram of water.
But the Colorado study suggests a different interpretation."
Full story at:
http://www.universetoday.com/2009/06/24/does-enceladus-harbor-a-liquid-ocean-reasonable-minds-disagree/#more-33334
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