Saturn’s moon Enceladus is spewing water 9,000 km up.

The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered a 6,000-mile-long water cloud from Saturn’s small ice-covered moon, Enceladus, spewing into space and forming a giant water cloud orbiting the ringed planet. Saturn’s Enceladus is one of the places in the solar system most likely to host extraterrestrial life. new observe James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) suggests that the large telescope could play a role in helping scientists decide how best to search and search for it.

Cassini mission The NASA-led team discovered water clouds on Enceladus during a series of close flybys in 2005. But at the time, scientists had only a limited understanding of how powerful these geysers really were. Now JWST has allowed scientists to take another look at these watery jets and investigate their composition. “With the James Webb Telescope, we can measure water remotely and for the first time see the whole picture,” Jeronimo Villanueva of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and lead author of the study told Space.com.

Webb’s measurements showed the stream of water gushing out of Enceladus 300 miles (500 kilometers) wide at a rate of 79 gallons (360 liters) per second. dimension. pool with water in a few hours. Although scientists expected to find water on Enceladus, the results of the first observation of Webb’s moon were completely unexpected.

“When we were planning this, we thought we would see some water very close to the surface,” Villanueva said. “We never expected this kind of water release.”

Radiation spectrum of the water cloud leaving Enceladus as measured by JWST (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Leah Hustak (STScI))

Measurements showed that, despite its small size, Enceladus has a major impact on the environment around the gas giant, which it orbits in less than two days. The water geyser creates a huge watery cloud that spreads to the other moons of the planet after the Moon orbiting Saturn. Analysis of the data showed that only 30% of the water that formed the torus-shaped water cloud remained in place. The remaining roughly 70% extends into the rest of the Saturn system and beyond, according to NASA.

Scientists are now wondering what else could spread through the solar system thanks to this powerful spray. Analysis of Cassini data has previously found molecules in Enceladus’ plumes that could be signs of life, such as methane, carbon, oxygen and phosphorus. Scientists believe that the tiny moon has all the necessary prerequisites for the emergence of simple life forms, because its liquid ocean is sandwiched between a thick ice crust and a rocky core that is a food source.