One of the main places to look for life beyond Earth in our solar system is Saturn's moon
Since Enceladus is covered in ice, it is very powerfulreflects light and looks like a bright white snowball. To understand more about this celestial body, the researchers also analyzed the missions to Saturn that took place in 2007.
This device had a tool calledThe Visible Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS), which recorded how light bounced off Enceladus, dividing it into different wavelengths and allowing scientists to draw conclusions about what it was made of.
Astronomers Capture Stellar Winds in Unprecedented Detail
Already in 2005, researchers already noticedhuge plumes of ice and steam that are believed to emerge from the ocean below the surface of the ice. The new spectral map shows infrared signals clearly correlate with geological activity, which is easy to see at the south pole.
These new ones indicate that the Northern Hemisphere is covered with fresh ice, but also that the same geological activity has occurred in both hemispheres - a change in the landscape surface.
“Infrared radiation shows us thatthe surface of the south pole is young, and this is not surprising, because we knew about jets that explode the icy material, ”says study co-author Gabriel Toby of the University of Nantes.
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