Oceans on Enceladus?

[PPI Brian]

NASA's Cassini spacecraft has discovered some amazing things about the ringed planet since it's achieved orbit. Launched on October 15, 1997 it took seven years to travel to Saturn, and arrived on July 1, 2004. On Christmas Day, December 25, 2004 it launched the Huygens probe built by ESA, which successfully landed on Saturn's largest moon Titan on January 14, 2008. Huygens is the only probe to ever land successfully on the moon of a gas planet. Cassini has discovered huge lakes of liquid hydrocarbons on the surface of Titan. Strangely enough, the atmoshpere is so thick and cold it rains hydrocarbons instead of water. The amount of information we have learned from these missions over the last 30 years is mind boggling. Voyager I & II gave us our best glimpses of the Jupiter and Saturn systems, and the Galileo spacecraft gave us our best glimpse of another world that might have an ocean: Europa. Now the Cassini spacecraft has given us our best glimpse of another dynamic moon that might also harbor an ocean: Enceladus.

Here's the latest news from Cassini:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhSOFNLM9tM&feature=channel

[Brigham]

Mmmm...  Enchiladas...

Actually, I find this all very fascinating. Saturn seems to have just the right size and location for its moons to be really interesting. Tidal forces and the sheer gravity well of Jupiter seems to hold back the awesomeness of it's satellites, which Uranus and Neptune are much smaller and farther from the Sun. But we sure hear about Saturn a lot.