Water in Saturn's moon

A pleasant surprise from Saturn’s moon

— Photo: NASA 
 
Geyser-like eruptions of ice particles and water vapour from Saturn’s moon Enceladus.

WASHINGTON: Astronomers looking at the spectacular supersonic plumes of gas and dust shooting off one of Saturn’s moons have said there are strong hints of liquid water, a key building block of life.

Their research, appearing in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature, adds to the growing push to explore further the moon Enceladus, as one of the solar system’s most compelling places for potential life.

Using images from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Cassini probe, astronomers had already figured that the mysterious plumes shooting from Enceladus’ icy terrain contain water vapour.

New calculations suggesting the gas and dust spew at speeds faster-than-sound make the case for liquid, said study lead author Candice Hansen of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.

Her team calculated that the plumes travel more than 2,176 kmph. Reaching that speed “is hard to do without liquids,” Ms. Hansen said.  more

Planets outside the solar system - 130 light years away

Planets outside the solar system

Dennis Overbye

— PHOTO: NASA/The New York Times 

GALACTIC SURPRISE: A dust ring, in red, surrounds the star Fomalhaut, located at the centre of the image but is not visible.

A little more of the universe has been pried out of the shadows. Two groups of astronomers have taken the first pictures of what are most likely planets going around other stars.

The achievement, the result of years of effort on improved observational techniques and better data analysis, presages more such discoveries, the experts said, and will open the door to new investigations and discoveries of what planets are and how they came to be formed.

“It’s the tip of iceberg,” said Christian Marois of the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics. “Now that we know they are there, there is going to be an explosion.”

Mr. Marois is the leader of a team that recorded three planets circling a star known as HR 8799 that is 130 light-years away in the constellation Pegasus. The other team, led by Paul Kalas of the University of California, Berkeley, found a planet orbiting the star Fomalhaut, 25 light-years from earth, in the constellation Piscis Austrinus.  more