This is a picture of Saturn’s moon Enceladus taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft. See those cracks near the white crescent? Scientist’s current best guess is that those mark the edges of ice floes. And the fuzzy plume at the top? A geyser of water. Yes, liquid water. Way out there in orbit around Saturn.
And the folks steering Cassini are hoping to get closer to the geyser to see if there are any complex molecules that may be indicative of life spewing out into space.
Isn’t the solar system great?
Read more about the photo and the Cassini mission at Bad Astronomy.
Read more about the search for complex molecules at New Scientist.
Read more about Cassini at NASA.