Dec. 1, 2005— A mysterious energy source is heating up the southern pole of Saturn’s moon Enceladus, triggering blasts of highly pressurized water ice that is spewing hundreds of miles into space, say scientists who this week released pictures of the fountains taken by the Cassini satellite.

Ah, the universe surely is a place of mystery and wonders.

Scientists earlier had discovered the moon’s southern hot spot, relatively speaking. Temperatures around Enceladus’ south pole are about -163° Celsius (-261° Fahrenheit), compared to -198° Celsius (-325° Fahrenheit) for the rest of the moon.

The team suspected there could be some geologic activity and set up the camera angle to take advantage of the sun-moon geometry. They were richly rewarded with a series of shots showing fountains blasting from the moon’s surface to a height of about 500 kilometers (311 miles), Porco said.

“We suspect it could be caused by cold vents that lead from somewhere in the subsurface, perhaps as far as 1 kilometer (.62 mile) down. Water ice is sublimating (changing directly from a solid to a gas state) and the vapors are coming off and building up to high pressure,” Porco said.

Source: Discovery Channel

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