Water Ocean Under The Ice of Saturn Moon Enceladus Now Confirmed

[axj]

Didn't see it in the SOTT Science News, so here it goes:

Liquid Ocean Sloshes under Saturn Moon’s Icy Crust, Cassini Evidence Shows
The new evidence of liquid water on Enceladus raises hopes that the moon could host extraterrestrial life
Apr 3, 2014 |By Clara Moskowitz

A liquid-water ocean hides under the frozen surface of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, new evidence confirms. The presence of this water boosts Enceladus’ ranking among the top places in the solar system to look for extraterrestrial life, scientists say.

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_http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/liquid-ocean-saturn-moon-enceladus/

April 3, 2014
NASA Space Assets Detect Ocean inside Saturn Moon

NASA's Cassini spacecraft and Deep Space Network have uncovered evidence Saturn's moon Enceladus harbors a large underground ocean of liquid water, furthering scientific interest in the moon as a potential home to extraterrestrial microbes.

Researchers theorized the presence of an interior reservoir of water in 2005 when Cassini discovered water vapor and ice spewing from vents near the moon's south pole. The new data provide the first geophysical measurements of the internal structure of Enceladus, consistent with the existence of a hidden ocean inside the moon. Findings from the gravity measurements are in the Friday April 4 edition of the journal Science.

"The way we deduce gravity variations is a concept in physics called the Doppler Effect, the same principle used with a speed-measuring radar gun," said Sami Asmar of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., a coauthor of the paper. "As the spacecraft flies by Enceladus, its velocity is perturbed by an amount that depends on variations in the gravity field that we're trying to measure. We see the change in velocity as a change in radio frequency, received at our ground stations here all the way across the solar system."

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_http://www.nasa.gov/press/2014/april/nasa-space-assets-detect-ocean-inside-saturn-moon/