Fact Sheet
'Leaking' Moon
More than 30 "jets" of liquid water spray into space from the region around the south pole of Enceladus, a moon of Saturn, in this recent image from the Cassini spacecraft. Cassini snapped the picture in late 2009, from a distance of approximately 9,000 miles (14,000 km). The craft had detected several jets during earlier encounters with Enceladus, but this pass revealed more than 20 new ones. The jets are expelled from warm spots in cracks on the moon's surface. Scientists are still debating the process that warms the ice and expels the water into space. [NASA/JPL/SSI]
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