Subsurface sea hides below ice of Saturn moon
Gravity maps of Enceladus reveal liquid water ocean beneath satellite’s south pole
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/cc_Enceladus_PIA06254_full_one.jpg?fit=860%2C460&ssl=1)
FROZEN Enceladus, a 500-kilometer-wide moon of Saturn, is blanketed in a thick sheet of ice. Salty water erupts through a network of fissures (blue) in the southern hemisphere. New measurements of the moon’s gravity reveal a subsurface ocean 30 to 40 kilometers beneath the south pole.
JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute, NASA