Atom & Cosmos
New evidence for a past ocean on Mars, plus more in this week’s news
By Science News
Hidden ocean on Saturn’s moon
The south pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus — where geysers of ice and water vapor spew from beneath the body’s surface — emits more than twice as much heat each second as researchers had estimated, according to a report by Carly Howett of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo., and her colleagues. The higher heat output, which is based on a new, more accurate analysis of measurements recorded by the Cassini spacecraft, makes it significantly more likely that icy Enceladus has a subsurface layer of liquid water, the team reports in a paper to appear in the
Journal of Geophysical Research–Planets
. The finding shines a brighter spotlight on the moon as an intriguing target for astrobiological studies, the researchers say. —