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Science 10 March 2006:
Vol. 311. no. 5766, pp. 1422 - 1425
DOI: 10.1126/science.1121254
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Reports

Enceladus' Water Vapor Plume

Candice J. Hansen,1* L. Esposito,2 A. I. F. Stewart,2 J. Colwell,2 A. Hendrix,1 W. Pryor,4 D. Shemansky,3 R. West1

The Cassini spacecraft flew close to Saturn's small moon Enceladus three times in 2005. Cassini's UltraViolet Imaging Spectrograph observed stellar occultations on two flybys and confirmed the existence, composition, and regionally confined nature of a water vapor plume in the south polar region of Enceladus. This plume provides an adequate amount of water to resupply losses from Saturn's E ring and to be the dominant source of the neutral OH and atomic oxygen that fill the Saturnian system.

1 Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA.
2 Laboratory for Air and Space Physics (LASP), University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80303, USA.
3 Space Environment Technologies, 320 North Halstead, Suite 170, Pasadena, CA 91107, USA.
4 Central Arizona College, Coolidge, AZ 85228, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: Candice.j.Hansen{at}jpl.nasa.gov

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